


at the heart of it all

by loseyoutoloveme



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Football, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Family Drama, Football | Soccer, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 50,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loseyoutoloveme/pseuds/loseyoutoloveme
Summary: V doesn’t even look up from his computer at Jaehyun, not even dignifying his worst enemy with a response.You think that if you don’t act as a middleman here, your boyfriend is going to behave in a manner that will definitely get you kicked out of this quiet library.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Reader, Kim Taehyung | V/Reader
Comments: 66
Kudos: 114





	1. you're nothing

**Author's Note:**

> please bear in mind i have little to no technical expertise in computer science/programming, so don't flame me for any inaccuracies LOL but as always you don't have to have any knowledge of coding, football, or soccer to understand this story.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading! hope everyone is staying safe out there, know that i'm thinking of everyone xo

“Hey.”

You look up from your computer to see Jaehyun Jung by your table, decked out in a OSU football sweats outfit and arms laden with books. You have no idea why he’s approached you like this, because normally you two are like water and oil, escaping the other’s presence as much as physically possible.

You can’t help the snarl, “Fuck off.”

“Nice,” he replies dully, unfazed by your vitriol, then he snaps at the person next to you. “Way to get your girlfriend to do your dirty work, Kim.”

V doesn’t even look up from his computer at Jaehyun, not even dignifying his worst enemy with a response. You think that if you don’t act as a middleman here, your boyfriend is going to behave in a manner that will definitely get you kicked out of this quiet library. You're a senior, you have one and a half semesters left, you can't get in trouble now.

You cross your arms over your chest as you observe the football player. “What do you want?”

Jaehyun eyes the empty seats at your table, the ones you’ve littered your bag and sweater across to make it seem like they’re occupied, “Every single chair in this library is taken, except for those.”

“We’re waiting on people,” you mutter, turning back to the the computer, and he sighs very loudly.

“You can’t save library seats, it’s literally on the sign,” he points to the neon poster that’s plastered across the nearest wall, bold letters declaring **_FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, DURING EXAM SEASON YOU CANNOT SAVE SEATS._**

You make a face of derision as you shrug, “Who cares?” It’s not like campus security is strolling the stacks trying to enforce that particular rule. Jungkook and Jimin should be here any second now, if you crack and follow the rules like you’re bred to do, you’d just be inviting a fuck load of drama.

But it’s not a deterrent to Jaehyun, who simply strolls over to one of the empty chairs at your table and plops himself down there like he owns the place, books and papers scattering everywhere. The audacity.

V’s fingers curl into a fist on the table, and you put your hand over his as you hiss at Jaehyun,“I said we were waiting on people.”

He sticks his nose in the air in an exaggerated sniffing gesture then throws an arrogant grin your way, “I don’t smell any approaching assholes, so deal with it.”

He sets about getting his computer running when you don’t protest any further. It’s not because you caved, it’s more because you’re weighing whether or not making a scene would actually be worth it. The moment the soccer team shows up there’s going to be a confrontation. If you can convince Jaehyun to leave you alone, maybe all that can be avoided.

“Ugh,” V groans as he puts his forehead into his hands. “I can’t get the program to print out _Hello World_ , do you know what this means?"

You catch the muted snigger from across the way, but you ignore Jaehyun completely to look down at your boyfriend’s screen. He’d had to take HTML basics to finish one of the final requirements of his communications degree and he’s pretty much been struggling hard since. He’s got some rudimentary lines of code written out, the tutorial open on the other half of his screen, and you know he’s asking you more as a last ditch effort to save himself rather than try and figure it out on his own.

In less than five seconds you pinpoint exactly what’s wrong, that he’s forgotten the second parentheses to close off that line of code, but you feign ignorance, “No idea.”

Your Slack pings with a message the exact moment you look back down at your computer after that exchange, then you’re furiously typing away in response.

> **literally satan do not respond:** he’s so dumb, it’s almost funny  
>  **you:** fuck off, seriously  
>  **literally satan do not respond:** wouldn’t it be funny if W found out that ur not actually studying for social media 101 or w/e rn  
>  **you:** are you threatening me?  
>  **literally satan do not respond:** yup  
>  **you:** wouldn’t it be funny if Prof. Kim found out I did the machine learning project by myself because you were away for football?

You stab at the keys of your computer particularly savagely when you send that last message, and as soon as the read receipt flashes, there’s a particularly cocky, “Any tips for the webdev exam?” from the corner.

You glance up and Jaehyun’s egging you on with a raised eyebrow, his pointed question designed to draw attention right to your lack of assistance you'd provided your boyfriend. You’d taken HTML basics in the summer before freshman year, and webdev is the most specialized course that stems from that path.

A course that he knows you take, because you happen to be in the same discussion section. Jaehyun must’ve spotted Brackets open on your computer when he walked by and realized that you were studying for the exam on Tuesday.

V runs a hand through his turquoise hair and enters the conversation for the first time with an exasperated,“Fuck off, Jung, stop bothering her. How would she know?”

Well, see, the thing is….

You spot Jaehyun about to open his fat mouth, and you take the opportunity to kiss your boyfriend on the cheek, then whisper in his ear, “Hey, can you grab me a water from the café?”

“Sure, babe,” V shrugs, not realizing what you’re actually doing, and gets up to head downstairs to the coffee shop that’s on the first floor.

Once he’s out of earshot, you’re confronting Jaehyun directly, “Are you seriously asking for my help or are you just attempting to threaten me again?”

“What do you think?”

You make a big show of pretending to open an email, reading aloud some fake text as you do so, “Dear Professor Kim, I would like to be forthcoming about events that transpired while completing project three—,”

Said events involved you puling an all-nighter to try and debug the code that Jaehyun had hastily written before flying to Florida for a game, and giving up and writing it all yourself in order to save your project grade. You’d yelled at him so ferociously in the hallway after lecture that week that you’d thought he was going to faint right there on the linoleum. You thought about telling Professor Kim the truth, but decided it would be better to keep this to youreslf, so you could lord it over his head.

“Jesus,” he holds his hands up in concession, knowing he has to keep good academic standing, even now, to stay on the team. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop!”

“Good.”

But just because he’s promised to stop threatening you about the subject doesn’t mean he’s going to shut up about it, “I still can’t believe you’ve been lying about this for three years.”

You grit your teeth, mostly because you can’t believe it either. Who knew that an affinity for Photoshop and deep feelings of personal inadequacy would lead you into a grave that’s been dug this far in. But once you’re out in the real world, it shouldn’t matter anymore. You keep your expression neutral, so he doesn’t know how his comment has pricked at you.

“Yeah, and there’s only one to go, so I’d be glad if you didn’t mess that up for me. But if you really need help with webdev,” you start and Jaehyun’s face lights up in surprise, like he can’t believe you’re actually going to help him with the class. “You should go to Suho’s office hours. He almost always gives out hints for the dumb and desperate.”

Suho is the most notoriously close lipped TA for webdev, speaking mostly in riddles and enigmatic statements to try and get you to really think about what you’re doing. You’d only managed to get on his good side since his boyfriend, Sehun, is your only true friend on campus. But Jaehyun doesn’t know that, because his schedule is so busy you’ve never seen him at office hours. He should be in for a pleasant surprise later.

The last comment is a jab directly at him for the torture he’s put you through today. He’s not dumb, not by a long shot, but you can’t help it.

Jaehyun’s lip quirks into a displeased snarl, “You’re an asshole, tiny.”

“Takes one to know one, ugly fuck,” you can give insults back as good as anyone, though it doesn’t seem to push at his buttons as much as you’d hoped.

There’s the sound of an approaching group, and you look over to see V, Jungkook, and Jimin approaching the table, all with coffees in hand, your water seemingly forgotten. You catch the way their faces twist in disgust when they see the football player there.

“What is he doing here?” Jungkook mutters to V, who shoots him this _please don’t ask_ look.

“Idiot jock,” Jimin spits, not bothering to be subtle about it.

“You literally also play a sport,” Jaehyun scoffs as he rolls his eyes, and you want to too, because Jimin’s insult is a self-boomerang, considering he and his friends are on the OSU soccer team.

You can feel the tensions boiling into the hushed space, the way they’re itching to raise their voices at each other, the way OSU FOOTBALL and OSU SOCCER seem to be screaming at each other from where they’re embroidered on their respective sweaters. Even though you’ve been dating V since before he joined the soccer team freshman year and won the championship, there’s so much of this history you don’t understand. As a whole, the teams seem to get along in the vein of school spirit and dedication to the OSU athletic booster, but these two little factions are a whole other story.

Case in point, the snide comment that Johnny Suh, star wide receiver, drops when he strolls in, “Didn’t realize the clown gathering was happening here at the library.”

“Where your red noses at?” Mark Lee, kicker, joins in once he sees the stand off that’s going down.

V’s lip curls, and you see the flash of venom in Jungkook’s normally sweet eyes, and there might actually be a fistfight in the middle of the library. You can’t risk that, not when V has the crucial game against Penn State next weekend, and especially not when the football team is still undefeated. If you spark the incident that causes their first loss, you think campus might never forgive you.

“Let’s just go,” you plead as you tug at V’s sleeve, pulling him away from the table. “It’s not worth it.”

He lets out a shaky breath, but his clenched fist unfurls. He makes a big ruckus gathering up his things, punctuated by the not at all muted giggles from the football boys. You can’t help but feel defeated, that you had to give up your post at the library to Jaehyun and his crew.

But that turns into satisfaction when your Slack pings later in the night.

> **literally satan do not respond:** suho! is! not! helpful! wtf!

—

“Is your schedule clear for this weekend, babe?”

You don’t even realize V’s asked you a question until he pushes the lid of your laptop closed and repeats his query again, “Is your schedule clear for this weekend?”

You push the screen back upright so you can keep working, you have overlapping algorithms and graduate information systems exams approaching, and after the disaster that was this week’s webdev exam, you really can’t afford another misstep. You really can’t afford to not be studying, either.

“What? For what?”

“The game against Penn State,” he gently reminds you. “Plus parents’ weekend.”

“That’s this weekend? Oh, fuck,” you curse lowly, rubbing your eyes in frustration.

You’ve been so frazzled this week, you’d completely forgotten that your weekend was full. Surely enough, when you click over to your calendar, color-coordinated events and reminders filling it to the brim, there is the little pink reminder reading _MOM &DAD, SOS. _

Even though parents’ weekend was something the soccer team had planned, that hadn’t stopped your parents from deciding they’d come down from Cleveland as well. That adds an additional, unnecessary level of stress into your life, one that you don’t need right now but can’t avoid. You’re going to have to put off at least one hour of studying to make sure all of your cover stories are polished and perfectly fit into place.

“Yes, dinner with our parents tomorrow night?” V reminds you as he rolls over on your comforter to hold your leg. “Remember? It took us forever to get those reservations.”

“Right, right, I’ll be there. At dinner,” you clarify, after you see the overlapping blue and green squares on Saturday afternoon. “I don’t think I can make the game.”

Yuta’s algorithms office hours are at two on Saturdays, right when the ball is scheduled to roll at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. You haven’t missed one of V’s games in a long time, but you can’t help that the graduate student is only free on the weekends.

V’s eyebrows lift in surprise, “You’re that busy? I thought senior year was chill for marketing majors.”

You’d imagine it probably is so, the list of required senior courses you’d printed off from the department’s website hadn’t had too many classes listed on it. Most of the actual marketing majors you’ve crossed paths with seem to be cruising their way through assembling their senior portfolios. Which you’re sure is all great, legitimate work. But there’s only so much sidestepping you can do when you’re literally drowning in your actual work, you just have to come up with a believable lie.

“Yeah, sorry, just a lot of overlapping exams coming up,” is what you give him, not even a real lie, since you do have a bunch of tests approaching. They’re just in your computer science classes.

There’s some pointed silence, way too long for a chatterbox like V, and when you look over at where he’s laying, his brow is furrowed, creased and wrinkled with some kind of stress.

“Wait, are you okay?” You murmur as you brush a hand over his hair and lean down to kiss him. “You look nervous. Is it about the game?”

You know that the team hasn’t been playing their best, they’re 3-4 and not really gelling, but they still have enough time to turn it around. This game against Penn State feels pivotal. If V can get them through this, they should be able to turn their season around.

“Yeah, something like that,” he responds absentmindedly, before reaching up to kiss you again, long and lingering, and then grabbing his bag. “I gotta run, good luck with your studying.”

You’re sad that your boyfriend has to go, because you want nothing more to cuddle up to him in bed and watch a movie. But on the other hand, your exams won’t just take themselves, you have an algorithms problem set you’re only halfway through that you need help with, and you need to finish the machine learning assignment of the week before Jaehyun has a chance to yell at you in retaliation.

You need to iron your dress, make sure you know what _The Plain Dealer_ ’s been publishing lately, but above all, you need to make sure you have every little detail about a marketing major’s unbothered senior year down pat before dinner tomorrow.

_I’m focusing on building my portfolio and solidifying my personal brand, I’m focusing on building my portfolio and solidifying my personal brand, I’m focusing on building my portfolio and solidifying my personal brand._

Is what you’re reciting in your head when you sprint into the restaurant ten minutes after seven, too wrapped up in fixing an error you’d discovered in your ML assignment that you’d hadn’t even started getting ready until 6:30.

You spot V’s blue hair in the back by a table way bigger than you expected, and your parents are behind him, grinning excitedly. You want to feel happy like everyone else, that you get to hug your parents and feel like a kid again, but you can’t help the anxiety.

“Hi, hi, sorry I’m late!” You breeze out as you straighten out your skirt, then hug them tightly. “Mom, Dad, hi!”

Your mom is kissing you on the cheek when you hear a deafening, “Surprise, lima bean!”

There’s only a handful of people who know your hated childhood nickname, and you whirl around to see your three sisters pop out from where they’d been crouched under the table.

“Dara, Sunny, Nicole?” You’re stunned to see them in the restaurant, under the impression that it was going to be you, your boyfriend, and both sets of parents. “Wow, you’re all here?”

“We’re all here!” Sunny squeals, as she, Dara, and Nicole all take their turns to kiss you on the cheek.

They’re dressed to the nines, in Lilly Pulitzer dresses patterned to match your mom’s, and you look down to your plain blue dress in noted acceptance. You’re happy to see them too, really, you are, but suddenly your lie has an audience now. You’re going to be performing under immense pressure, something you haven’t had to do since last Christmas.

You turn to the other adults, who have been preoccupied in fussing over their youngest son, and you greet them politely, “Hi, Mrs. Kim, Mr. Kim,” and then you notice that V’s brother is also somehow here, “Jin.”

Oy, when did parents’ weekend turn in to family reunion weekend?

They greet you in the same _you’re my oldest friend’s kid_ _and son’s cute girlfriend_ type of way, a warm hug from V’s mother and a gruff hand on the shoulder from his father, who’s more distracted by the way his oldest son is not looking up from his phone.

“Sorry to hear about the game today, Taehyung,” your father offers up sympathy, and it’s then that you realize you haven’t even looked up the result of today’s game. That can’t be good. “You guys put up a strong fight.”

“Hon,” your mom hisses after she’s elbowed your dad in the side.

You’ve told them time and time again to never bring up a bad game to V’s face, something you’ve learned from experience, but they never remember. Why couldn’t your father had brought up how the newspaper was doing or something? It's his business, he usually can never shut about it.

You hate that you’d missed the loss to Penn State, V probably needed cheering up afterwards. You hazard a glance to his face, but there’s no telltale sign of anger, only the same sweaty anxiety he’d been wearing last night. Huh? The game is over, so what could be bothering him?

“Ah, right,” your father quickly changes the subject, and it’s your turn to be thrust into the searing spotlight. “Y/n, how is your semester going? Hard to top last semester’s straight As.”

Hard to top the four hours you’d spent on Photoshop doctoring your transcript, changing your straight As in your technology in society and human-computer interactions classes to As in logo design and social media outreach. You weren’t falsely boosting your GPA, you’d actually gotten those As, but, your parents still seem to be none the wiser. Which is good for you.

You give them an undetailed, “Fine,” hoping that they’ll move on from your education to more pleasant topics, like golf, or the Browns.

Not-so-lucky for you, your boyfriend takes that opportunity to chime in with, “Busy, apparently.”

“Really? Senior year was the easiest for me,” Dara wonders out loud, because she’d studied public relations at OSU. She also always seems to think she’s an authority on the subject, since she now does PR for several successful Cleveland restaurants, even though that’s a completely different line of work.

“Always studying, this one is,” your father reminds your sister, coming off more condescending than he probably intends. Those straight As didn’t appear out of nowhere.

“Yeah, between games and events, it feels like we’ve barely had time together!” V pouts.

“Y/n!” Your mother chastises you. “You really should be spending time with Taehyung!”

You really should be doing a lot of proper girlfriend things, but oh well.

Mrs. Kim must sense your discomfort, because she tries to divert the conversation again, “So, y/n, do you think you’re going to get a return offer from that fashion place you were at?”

You’re in this lie so deep you’d come up with a fake fashion boutique to do marketing for as your summer internship last year. Your parents and V’s had both completely bought it. V had been relatively easy to trick too, since he'd stayed on campus to train with the team and didn’t come to New York with you. You’d really been at the Apple office in the Flatiron neighborhood as an intern software engineer. By the way, yes, your manager at Apple had given you the return offer on your last day in the office.

“I’m not sure, I think they liked the projects I did over the summer,” another modest lie, you’d been the best intern on your team. “But nothing’s guaranteed.”

“Ah!” Nicole claps happily at the thought. “It’d be so great to have you back in New York full time after graduation! You can come over and spend time with the baby!”

It had been especially hard to hide your internship from Nicole, who lived on the Upper East Side with her husband and son. But she was so wrapped up in new baby talk, she never asked after the details of your job whenever you visited.

“No, she can come back to Cleveland and live with me, Eric, Mom, and Dad, right y/n?” Dara interrupts, and your head begins to spin with all of the queries that are being thrown at you. There's no way you're going to live at home with your parents and your sister and her spouse.

“Honestly, there’s no need to work, because you two are going to be moving in together after graduation, right?” Sunny questions you, jealousy palpable in her voice.

You know she’d wanted to marry her first OSU boyfriend, Jay, who played basketball and was drafted by the Cavs. But they’d broken up after graduation and he’d started dating someone else right away, the luxurious athlete’s wife future slipping right out of her fingers. She’s a lifestyle influencer now, and her husband is an accountant, but you know she still secretly lusts for her alternate universe life.

“Sunny’s right, y/n,” Mr. Kim chimes in, finally paying attention to what’s being discussed. “If Taehyung gets recruited to the LA Galaxy like we’re all expecting, you should be set.”

You catch V’s eye, catch the way it just gleams with interest at the idea, “Right.”

Everyone in both families has acted like V getting recruited to play professional soccer is a forgone conclusion. Sometimes you feel like you’re the idiot, for pressing him to look for jobs just in case, for not wanting to take his athletic prowess for granted. And you don’t even really want to touch on what they’re implying with their comments.

V stands abruptly, knee accidentally knocking into the table when he does, and there’s an audible shake in his voice when he exclaims, “Well, now that we’re on this subject, I’d like to take this opportunity to say something.”

Just what is up with him? Usually, eating with your parents doesn’t make him this nervous. He’s been jittery for two days now.

He grabs your hand with his, the trembles in his arm shocking into your body, and his pretty eyes lock with yours when he murmurs, “We’ve been together since high school, and I have to say, they have been the best years of my life. You support me, are there for me no matter what, and are my biggest fan. There’s no one I would rather have as my ride or die, the love of my life, and hopefully my future soccer mom.”

Everyone here, a sudden heartfelt speech, the beads of moisture on his lip, what the fuck is going on?

V sinks down onto one knee. Oh. Okay. This is happening.

“So, y/n, will you marry me?”

He unveils a beautiful red velvet box, glittering halo-cut diamond on a pristine rose gold band inside, and all you can think of is the fact that you haven’t even discussed getting engaged, let alone married. You’re twenty-one and still in college! There’s so much life to live before that, you can’t picture yourself becoming a wife at twenty-one.

But it’s undeniable, V is your ride or die, he’s the love of your life, and it’s only natural that you guys get married after dating for so long. There’s no one else you’d rather be with, and he makes you happy. There’s no harm in getting engaged, it’s not like you have to get married right away. And you have to remind yourself again that more than anything, he makes you happy.

“Yes,” you answer in a second, so he doesn’t have to nervously wait any longer. “Yes, yes, of course.”

V’s face explodes into pure joy, and once he has the ring on your finger, he lifts you up, and kisses you as he twirls you around in his arms. Okay, that, that feeling of euphoria when you’re together is enough for you to be satisfied with your answer.

“Oh my gosh, I’m crying!” Sunny sniffs as she watches, hand in hand with Dara.

“I can’t believe it, our baby sister is finally engaged!” Nicole is beside herself in tears, and she and your mom envelop you in a huge hug as soon as V puts you down.

Your dad is similarly emotional as he embraces you, small tears dotting in his eyes, “Congrats, honey, I’m so happy for you.” He’s been waiting for this, especially after your sisters had all gotten married years ago. You hope this lives up to his expectations.

You move to hug V’s parents as well, but Jin knocks a glass of Coke right onto your skirt as he moves away from your path. You hiss at the cold sensation of ice tumbling down your legs, and your teeth grit when you see the stain spreading across your dress.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” Jin apologizes, and though you can see it in his face that it hadn’t been intentional, his parents immediately start scolding him like he’s not in his twenties.

“Ah, it’s okay,” you wave him off, but excuse yourself from the table. “I have to get this out before it sets, though.”

This is your interview dress, you can’t have it permanently ruined with a brown spot, especially when it’d been $100. Some water and a good wash tonight will hopefully be able to salvage it, so you’re running to the bathroom when you hear someone call your name,

“Y/n?”

You spin around one and a half times, comically missing the person who’d tried to get your attention. But then you see Jaehyun there, in a charcoal suit and maroon tie, hair a sweaty mess on his head, cheeks still flushed from the team’s resounding 32-0 win over Butler.

“Jaehyun? What are you doing here?” You ask after you spot a very rowdy group of guys over by the bar, all in a variety of post-game dress up clothes, hooting and hollering over beers.

“We always come here after victories,” he explains, shoving his hands into his pockets and shuffling his foot. “What are you doing here?”

Your gaze shifts back to the table, where your families are cheerfully chatting as they wait for your return, “It’s the soccer team’s parents’ weekend.”

“Is that why you haven’t been responding to my messages?” Jaehyun exclaims lowly, trying not to draw attention but upset nevertheless. “We need to finish the outline!”

“The what?”

“The game design final project outline?”

An image pings into your mind, an orange square on your calendar that you’d bypassed, and you scramble for your phone to check Slack, which had been muted for all of past two days.

> **literally satan do not respond:** we’re playing butler tmr, then team dinner  
>  **literally satan do not respond:** but i can work on game design before. lmk

Fuck, you thought that was due next week.

You’re about to slip him an excuse, just another one to add onto your shitty pile from tonight, but then Jaehyun’s eyes widen in recognition, “You forgot.”

“I, I—,” you fumble, not wanting to give him an opportunity to hold this over your head like you’d done.

“Y/n,” your mother calls from across the way. “Hurry up and get back here so we can toast to your engagement!”

Jaehyun’s jaw drops then as he registers your mother’s words, and his eyes drop right down to your hand, to the shining piece of jewelry that has made its way onto your finger. When he composes himself, his usually loud mouth is tight and silent, both of you totally unsure of what to say. Especially because, for some absurd reason, you feel particularly inclined to apologize. You don’t know why, because getting engaged is definitely an okay excuse.

“Sorry. I’ll finish it when I get home, send me what you have and I’ll do the rest. It’ll be done by tomorrow, promise,” you whisper, then hurry your way back to your table, feeling Jaehyun’s eyes on you the whole way there.

The stain will have to wait. You can’t risk crossing paths with him again.

You know you should be reveling in your newfound engagement, and you do, especially when V kisses you extra tenderly that night in your bed, and when he can’t stop staring at you and your ring, so pleased with how it’s all turned out. You allow yourself to take your fair share of time to gaze at him too, to soak in his gorgeous blue hair and the face you’re going to wake up to every morning for the rest of your life. You’re engaged, this should be the happiest day of your life.

But you can’t help the worry, that you’ve let an assignment slip through the cracks, that you should be working right now in order to get fully caught up. The moment that V’s eyes have fluttered closed and he’s snoring away on your pillow, you fire up your laptop to begin working on whatever Jaehyun’s sent over.

That worry spikes into dread when you see the title of the game he’s come up with, laughing at you right from your screen.

_At the Heart of It All_

—

“What is that?” Sehun drawls as he slips into the seat next to you.

You assume he’s talking about the same thing that’s been pulled up on your display for the past sixteen hours, the words you’ve been reading and re-reading, “It’s my game design proposal.”

“No, no. What is _that,”_ he juts his chin out towards the opulent accessory decorating your hand, and you have the strange urge to cover it up.

“Oh. A different proposal?” A sheepish smile crosses your face, because you hadn’t even had the thought to call your friends and drop the news, or post about it on Instagram.

Sehun’s jaw drops open in a gasp, “V proposed?!”

“Yes?”

Sehun’s reaching out hold your hand when he catches the total lack of thrill in your words, “Are we not excited about it?”’

You’ve never explicitly told Sehun about any sort of doubts you might have about your relationship with V, not that you have too much to complain about. But Sehun knows you well enough, maybe more than anybody, to pick up on your muted reaction. Frankly, you’re not sure how to answer him, can’t really pinpoint why you’re not exceedingly happy about marrying the guy you’ve been in love with for a quarter of your life.

You just sigh and look back at your computer, “We are too busy to be excited about it.”

“Did you tell him at least?” He prods carefully.

You shake your head. “No.”

“I mean, what do you think is going to happen when you graduate and get a fabulous tech job? Are you going to keep lying for the rest of your life?” Sehun asks you the hard questions, and yet again you don’t have an answer. You’re truly trapped in this web of lies, but you figure you still have a whole year to figure out how to extract yourself from them.

“No! I just, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” you massage at your temple with your hand, this topic stressing you out beyond belief. “You should’ve seen him at dinner. He was practically salivating at the idea of me becoming a soccer wife.”

You know V doesn’t mean any harm, he just wants an easy life for you, so you can move with him wherever he gets recruited and live a lavish, unhurried lifestyle. But it does hurt you a little, that these things are assumed and not actually discussed.

Sehun grimace. “Yikes.”

“I don’t know. It’s something I have to figure out. I’ve loved him for so long, I don’t want to lose him.” That is the one thing you’re sure of, is that you don’t want to give up V or your dreams, you have to find a way to make all that work.

Sehun pats you softly on the hand before he makes his exit, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I’m going to go.”

“Hello.”

You glance up from your seat to see Jaehyun, in glasses and a knit sweater, and you feel that same unconscious itch that had crept into your system last night at the restaurant upon running into him.

“Hi.”

“Nice rock, tiny,” is what he decides to open with as soon as he’s sat down in Sehun’s unoccupied seat. “Q decided to chain himself down, huh?”

You pointedly ignore his prying for information and focus in on the task at hand, “Were you being facetious with your outline idea?”

“ _Were you being facetious with your outline idea?”_ He makes fun of you, scrunching up his face in an imitation of yours. “No, I wasn’t.”

You squint your eyes to read the brief blurb of text he’d written as the abstract. _This is a choose-your-own adventure style game centered around a superhero, who has been hiding their true identity for their entire life. But in a twist, instead of trying to conceal who they are, the user works through scenarios designed to wreak as much havoc and draw as much attention as possible, trying to expose who they really are to the world. The strength of their power lies in their public knowledge, so make the wrong choices and their alter ego might be destroyed forever._ There is too much undercover irony in that description for him to have written this with innocent intentions.

You fix him with the most displeased stare you can muster, “You really want to code a game about a superhero who’s trying to reveal herself to the public?”

“Says right here, it can be a game for any gender,” he points out the following line with complete innocence, _This game is designed to be played by any gender, the graphics will be tailored accordingly._

This isn’t the time for Jaehyun to have a smirk pasted on his mouth, this is not a joke. There is no way he hadn’t been thinking about your life when he’d written this up. He is one of two people who knows the circumstances of reality, albeit begrudgingly so, and it’s annoying as fuck that he’s chosen it as a project idea. He may as well have titled it REVEAL Y/N’S BIG FAT BAG OF LIES TO THE WORLD IN A VEILED, SATIRICAL WAY.

“Answer the question,” you push out through gritted teeth.

Thought it’d be funny,” he shrugs, no picking up on your displeasure. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes, tons!” You pass him your notebook, filled with half scrawled ideas that you’d gotten down in a haste, anything to avoid working on his proposed one.

Jaehyun’s eyes barely graze the page. “Veto, veto, veto. Hmmm, nope, veto.”

“You didn’t even look!” You exclaim in exasperation.

“I did most of the proposal because you were getting proposed to, so this is what we’re doing,” he states matter-of-factly, and you suddenly don’t have a leg to stand on.

If Jaehyun hadn’t come up with this idea, as much as it bothers you, you would’ve been stuck with a desperate, half-assed plan for the rest of the year. All because you’d been out taking your relationship with V to the next level and forgotten about your work. If only you hadn’t gotten distracted that Friday night by having V over, or stayed home from yesterday's dinner, you would’ve been cognizant enough to respond to Jaehyun’s messages earlier and avoided all this.

But it’s too late now, you only have a few more hours before this is supposed to be turned in.

With very, very, very resentful acceptance, you will admit that maybe it’s a smart idea. Most of the other groups will create your standard platform game or shooting app. This is heavily logic based, with a creative plot diversion, and Jaehyun always designs the most beautiful graphics. No one will figure out that all of this is a masquerade ball of mockery, no one will be able to connect those dots and figure out he’s targeted you for ultimate embarrassment.

“Did you know?” Jaehyun asks, out of the blue.

“Hm?”

“That Q was proposing?”

You glance up again in surprise, expecting him to still be wearing that same devilish expression. But he’s not, the corner of his mouth is curved up in a curious smile. You probably owe him a lie, that you’d had it planned out and everything, but you shake your head with the truth, “No. No idea.”

As soon as you think this conversation has wandered into pleasantries territory, Jaehyun sarcastically quips, “You don’t seem that pleased about it. Trouble in paradise?”

Of course, there’s no break from the aggravation. “I need to be working if you want this to get done by 9 pm.”

“I just find it interesting that we’ve shared classes for some time now, we’ve been partnered up for the semester, and you still won’t talk to me,” he says as he leans back in his chair, like you were the one solely responsible for the frosty wall built between you.

“Why do you want to talk to me?” You ask honestly, because he’s never expressed desires to be friendly with you before.

“Okay, forget I said anything,” Jaehyun takes your legitimate query as an attack, and fires back, “You’re just as bitchy as Q is.”

“Fuck off, ugly fuck,” you spit back as soon as his insult has slashed into your ear, and his nose wrinkles in displeasure when he turns back to his computer.

The two of you work on the Google doc in stony silence for the rest of the afternoon, with you resisting the strong urge to delete everything he adds in.

—

“Hey, can you guys wait for a second after class?” Irene — your game design professor who insisted on being called Irene and not Professor Bae — asks after your next lecture session.

You glance behind you, to where Jaehyun sits, and you answer for both of you before he has a chance to escape it, “Sure.”

“Great,” Irene doesn’t seem concerned, so hopefully this meeting isn’t regarding anything serious. “I’ll be just a second after I help Rose.”

She heads back to her lectern at the front of the classroom, mirorred with the sound of clunkier footsteps coming down the stairs. A laptop is dropped onto the desk next to where you usually sit, OSU Football sticker on it telling you that Jaehyun is right there.You choose to stand in pointed silence, not bothering to make any sort of small talk.

Irene and Rose are still talking, when your phone pings with a notification from your email. You take it out of your pocket and check, then you let out a yelp, “Oh, shit, interviews for Google are out.”

You catch Jaehyun’s cough, and finally look over to see his face devoid of all color, “Now?”

“Yes,” you nod your head rapidly, fingers fumbling to unlock your phone. “They said they’d be emailing everyone at noon!”

The nerves are alight in your body as you click through your apps to get to your inbox. You’ve applied to dozens of internships over the years, but this is your first actual job application, for when you’re out on your own, and you cannot deny that you’re anxious about it. But that dissolves away into pure excitement the moment your eyes skim the opening of the email:

> _Dear y/n,_
> 
> _Thank you for your application for the position - software engineer - here at Google. We are reaching out to extend you an invite to interview on-site at the Google headquarters in New York City._

“Yes!” You whoop with happiness, shaking your arms in celebration. “I got an interview.”

“Of course you did,” Jaehyun mutters, and you remember that you’re not alone.

You take in his face, also looking at his phone, and he is not matching your enthusiasm one bit. You immediately feel bad for your exuberant reaction and tentatively ask, “Oh, you didn’t?”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything and you hope you’re not overstepping when you put a hand on his arm and rise up onto your tiptoes to read over his shoulder:

> _Dear Jaehyun,_
> 
> _Thank you for your application for the position - software engineer - here at Google. We received many strong applications this cycle, and have currently filled our quota for in-person interviews. You have been placed on the wait list…_

He clicks the screen locked before you have a chance to read the rest of the rejection email. If he’d been your friend, you’d have words of comfort and encouragement, but all you manage is a subdued, “Bummer.”

“Can I see yours?” He surprisingly asks, and you hand your phone over, unsure why he would want to torture himself like this.

Jaehyun reads and scrolls, reads and scrolls, down and up and across more of the email than you’ve actually read. Is there some stipulation you hadn’t noticed, had you been too premature in celebrating?

“If you aren’t interested,” he recites from the screen. “Please reply so a spot can open up for someone on our wait list.”

“I think they say that to everyone,” you explain, though you don’t directly know a single person who’s ever declined one of these.

You assume he’s going to let it go, but then his tone turns dark, “You owe me. For keeping your secret and for what happened in the spring.”

“For what—,” you choke out, startled.

Jaehyun harshly tosses you your phone, “Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what.”

You, you haven’t thought about that April night in so long. It really had been completely forgotten from your memory. He’s obviously still angry about it, if the labored flex of his neck is any indication, and that tiny rosette of guilt is back. Perhaps _maybe_ you’d behaved in a way that was less than ladylike, but for him to use this against you to get an interview? What on earth is he on?

“You think I don’t want Google?” You categorically move past him bringing that up old encounter to get to the core of the matter.

“You already have a return offer from Apple!” He exclaims in frustration. “Plus I’m sure you’ll have your pick of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Amazon on top of that!”

Curious, how he knows exactly what other positions you’ve applied for.

You’re about to sling a fierce retort when Irene hurries over and apologies, “Sorry to keep you waiting, guys.”

“It’s no big, Irene,” you accept with more poise than you’re currently feeling.

“Just wanted to check in with you two on your final project proposal,” your professor starts, and you brace yourself for the criticism. Then, her face blossoms into a huge smile, “I loved it.”

“You what?” Jaehyun gapes in disbelief and you do the same.

“I really think it’s an ambitious, unique idea,” Irene is gushing now, praising the idea that still doesn’t sit quite right with you. “I love the quirk of the superhero wanting to be found out. Usually it’s the other way around.”

Jaehyun turns red. “T-thank you.”

“Some of the higher logic we won’t cover until next semester. I just wanted to tell you to feel free in setting up personal office hours with me if you get stuck before then,” she lets you know, and then with a wave, heads back to her office attached to the lecture hall.

You turn back to Jaehyun, pleased that your professor has complimented your shared work, and think that he’ll want to revel in it with you. Instead, he immediately switches the conversation back to the previous topic,“So are you going to do something about it?”

Right, the Google interview, the Google interview Jaehyun’s trying to get you to rig because of some misplaced anger he still holds towards you from last semester. Of course, you didn’t know everything that was going to happen then, but still!

“You’re a real fucking asshole for trying to blackmail me into getting you an interview,” you growl lowly.

“Takes one to know one,” Jaehyun crosses his arms over his chest, defiant. “You know you owe me.”

That gives you pause. Do you? Owe him?

No. You don’t owe him a fucking thing. This has nothing to do with the personal beef you share, and everything to do with your intellectual prowess, something you highlight in frustration, “Maybe you should’ve thought to improve your resume instead!”

“ _Maybe you should find out_ ,” he mocks the higher pitch of your voice and you’re almost completely blown backwards at the fact that he remembers what you’d said. “I’m leaving. Bye.”

Jaehyun stalks out of the lecture hall, completely incensed, leaving a stunned you standing there.

Because when you think about it, really think about it, think about his shocked face, and the jeers on social media, and V’s smug laughter after that night. Maybe you do. Owe him.

Upon reflection, you really think you might.

—

“I need your help.”

You don’t even glance up from where you’re furiously typing away at your artificial intelligence homework when you hear V’s request. You really hope this isn’t him asking you to do some of his communications homework for him. You don’t have the time right now.

But his request isn’t academic based, and he is completely serious when he pushes down the lid of your laptop to snarl, “We have to get at Jung.”

“Quarterback Jung? What happened now?” You lean back at your chair, annoyed that they’re trying to rope you into their feud with the football team. “Didn’t Jimin just TP the football house’s lawn the other day for something or another?”

Jimin looks over from where he’s playing V’s Xbox on the couch, “Yeah, that fucker Suh almost caught me, too.”

This has been going on since you were freshmen, and though you’re juniors, almost seniors now, you still have no idea what set off the plethora of negative feelings shared between the two factions of athletes. You say as much, “I truly don’t understand why you guys hate each other. You’re all Buckeyes, aren’t you?

“They think they’re so much better than us, for being NCAA gods, getting drafted, and being worshiped on campus, and they act like it too,” Jungkook mutters, clearly as displeased as his friends.

V’s hand is curled in a fist where it’s resting on the dining room table. “They need to be knocked down a peg.”

“I mean, I get it. They’re fucking douchey,” you concede, because they treat you like you’re invisible scum just for associating with the soccer team. But V seems filled with more fury than usual. “But you are, like, legitimately angry.”

Your boyfriend shares a loaded look with Jungkook and Jimin you can’t decipher, then he lowly reveals, “Jung accused me of cheating on our sociology exam, in front of everyone.”

“What the fuck?”

Throughout all the instances of foolery, this is the one that makes you see red. How dare he. V needs to have good academic standing in order to keep playing soccer, first off, but he is definitely not the kind of person who would cheat on exams to get ahead. Sure, he may struggle with his work from time to time, but he’d never stoop that low. For Jung to insinuate something nefarious was going on is too pathetic.

“Yeah,” V nods his head solemnly at your darkening expression. “So, this needs to be personal. And public.”

“Fine,” you cave, putting your laptop away so you can plan. “What are you thinking?”

That leads you to now, three hours later, at the entrance to 7th Sense’s, pulling the collar of your shirt up so it can be a bit more modest. You don’t look out of place in your very short crop top and skirt, but V, Jimin, and Jungkook all have baseball caps on, slung low over their faces so they won’t be spotted.

You move further inside the bar, anxiety creeping up on you as you search the place for your intended target. You don’t see that obnoxious head of dyed blonde hair anywhere, so maybe you’ll be able to get yourself out of this one.

“There he is, there he is!” Jimin slaps you on the back after a few minutes, discreetly pointing over at the corner.

“Where?”

“By the bar.”

You peek out from behind V’s shoulder, and sure enough, there the quarterback is, shoulders sagged over the wood counter as he nurses a beer. There are two different groups of girls beside him, whispering with each other as they stand at a distance and you realize this might be tougher to pull off than you expect.

“Remember our plan?” V questions as he huddles the group up. The three of you all affirm that you do, knowing exactly what roles you’re supposed to play and where to be.

“Ugh,” he groans suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m honestly pissed he gets to see you like this,” V whines, though it’d been his idea for you to dress up in going out clothes instead of your regular ones.

“You have nothing to worry about.” Famous last words.

With that, you take off from the small group, walking confidently through the crowd of people. There’s a tiny space available between Jaehyun’s barstool and the next one over, that’s your target. You saunter past the people surrounding him — earning you some festering glares from those who hadn’t moved to approach — and squeeze yourself right up to the bar. You flag down the bartender and order a beer in a quiet voice. Then you take a deep breath, and turn your head to the right.

If you felt like your entrance was grand, Jaehyun Jung clearly hasn’t noticed, all his attention is focused in on the amber liquid in his glass, back hunched as he slumps over the bar. This is a far cry from how he confidently swaggers through campus, how he runs with ease on the football field, how he sits in the front of your shared classes and knows absolutely everything. Something must be wrong, because he’s alone, too. Time to find out.

“Hey,” you say breezily, with just enough surprise to make it seem like you’ve just run into each other out of coincidence.

He looks up from his beer, and his pretty lips curve up into a smile, “Hey. You’re in my artificial intelligence class, right? Y/n?”

You’re completely shocked he knows that you’re in his lecture, let alone knows your name. You sit in the very back row, as inconspicuous as possible, and contribute to the class at the bare minimum level needed to keep your participation grade afloat.

You nod, taking a pensive sip of your beer, “Not a well known fact, but yes.”

You hate that he’s this good looking, especially when his brow quirks up with curiosity, “Oh, why is that?”

“Is a female software engineer that enticing?” You blurt all of a sudden, not coming off as controlled as you’d hoped. “Not usually a thing that people want to know.”

He shrugs your usually held-inside worry off. “It’s 2020.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask.

“Shouldn’t it not matter what career a woman chooses now? That’s like the first thing my mom drilled into my head when I started dating,” he divulges nonchalantly, then drains the remaining bit of his beer.

Huh, that’s interesting. A far cry from what’s been drilled in your head, _ladies should have proper careers like homemaking or hospitality, anything else might be seen as improper_ and _you mustn't showboat in front of the man that you're with._ A far cry from all that internalized sexism and misogyny you’ve been dealing with since before you even started here at OSU. And really, he’s right. This isn’t the 1800s anymore.

This is so unlike what you’d expected from him that you go off script,“Can I buy you another drink?”

Jaehyun looks around to see if there’s another person you could be talking to and sees no one. “Me? Why?”

“I don’t know, I don’t see your football buddies anywhere, which must mean you’re here drinking for a reason,” you press yourself up to the bar further, your leg brushing his when you turn to look at him straight on.

“Ah, you know I play football?” Jaehyun asks, bashful, fingers clenching around his glass in a display of shyness you hadn’t thought he was capable of.

“Who doesn’t,” you deadpan, because he’s the closest thing you can get to a campus celebrity.

“Right,” he doesn’t seem pleased at the thought, and he eyes your beer hungrily. “Well, if you must know, I’m drinking because I found out today that Wong might enter the transfer portal.”

Oh, shit. You’d heard the rumors floating around that Lucas Wong, star LSU quarterback, was contemplating a transfer after their coach was fired. And after Ohio State had lost in the first round of the college football playoffs, apparently Jaehyun’s starting job as quarterback is on the line now.

“Uh oh, starting job is in jeopardy, huh?” You ask him as much, and when he gives you a _how do you know this_ look, you tap your temple knowingly. “Born and bred Browns fan, I know the saga of a quarterback rotation.”

“Yup, pretty much. If he transfers, that’s probably the end of any NFL aspirations,” he groans, and now you get it, why he looks so depressed sitting here.

You don’t know why you have the urge to comfort him, but you do, “I mean, you’ve started since freshman year, one down season won’t kill it completely.”

“No, no,” Jaehyun sighs in complete resignation and acceptance of his fate. “It will.”

You’re about to ask him why he’s so sure the is the end of the line for him, when you mentally slap yourself on the forehead. Get it together, y/n, you’re here for one reason and that’s not to shoot the shit with Jaehyun from the football team. Stick to the plan, stick to the plan.

“So, you’re here and you’re drinking your sorrows away,” you lower your tone, so the words dance out into the air in an alluring manner. “Got any plans for after that?”

You dart your head over your shoulder to see V, Jimin, and Jungkook in position at the booth across the way. You thread your thumb through your skirt’s belt loop, the signal that they should get ready. If this goes the way you think it’ll go, it shouldn’t be long now.

“Not sure yet,” Jaehyun mutters more to his glass, then to you, and then he notices that you’re sort of staring at him. “Why are you asking? Out of curiosity or something else?”

There he is now, the campus god slithering out, the strains of arrogance in his voice palpable. You’re sure he’s gotten many a girl home using these dulcet, seductive tones, and if you hadn’t been you, you might’ve done the same. Because he is handsome, annoyingly so, good at everything he does, irritating and cocky but most importantly, someone who tried to publicly humiliate your boyfriend. That’s the only thing that matters right now.

Two can play at that game, and your lips purse into a smirk when you murmur, “Maybe you should find out.”

You have him now, Jaehyun’s under your spell completely, the ruddy flush creeping up into his cheeks not just a result of the alcohol. In order to really sell the ruse, you allow his warm hand to touch your arm, nearly stumbling with the dynamic sensation that sparks at your skin there. You’re completely frozen, all you can do is stand there and watch dumbly, watch the way his eyelids flutter closed, watch the way his bangs sweep across his forehead when he tilts his head to the side, watch the way Jaehyun Jung, star quarterback, brings his face to yours so he can kiss you.

It’s only at the last minute that you catch a grip on yourself and yank your face away from his.

“Sorry,” he apologizes as soon as he opens his eyes and realizes you’ve dodged his advance.

You feign innocence. “For what?”

The blush blooms even deeper on his face, redder than the most crimson rose, and it’s almost enchanting, that plus the way he nervously whispers, “Did I read that wrong?”

“Hey, baby!” V saunters in from his hiding spot, hat now removed so Jaehyun can see who he is, and V takes that opportunity to kiss you full on the mouth.

You smile at him, at your real boyfriend, and you greet him lightly, “Hey.”

It’s not hard to miss the realization that crosses Jaehyun’s face then, that he had, indeed, read the situation completely wrong. That you hadn’t been flirting, but making friendly small talk as you ordered a drink, that you’d merely been supporting a campus athlete in his time of need. His hand comes to scratch at the back of his neck in anxiety, and maybe, just maybe, you feel a little bit bad. He’s not even that visibly upset about V’s presence.

“We should go, don’t you have to study for that social media outreach exam tomorrow? All the marketing kids were freaking out,” V says as an excuse to pull you away from the conversation, but that definitely was the wrong excuse to make.

You see Jaehyun’s eyes spark with recognition at the falsehood that’d come from your boyfriend’s mouth, and is about to open his own to reveal the truth when you grab V’s arm to start pushing him away.

“Yeah,” you grumble, escorting V out of Jaehyun’s bizarre gravitational pull before he has a chance to expose you. “Let’s go.”

The moment you’re out of the bar, the trio of soccer players explodes into laughter, their hoots and hollers ringing into the night.

V is wheezing, gasping for breath as he guffaws, “That was simply comical, I can’t believe the look on his face!”

“That was literally the most fucking hilarious thing ever,” Jimin chortles as he and Jungkook hold each other upright to keep from stumbling in their laughter, tears leaking from their eyes.

You experience an immense wave of satisfaction at how you’d been able to trick Jaehyun. Being publicly rejected in the middle of the crowded bar should be enough comeuppance for V’s appetite for vengeance to be satiated. You don’t even feel that guilty, because Jaehyun had done all the jumping to conclusions himself. It’d been almost hilariously easy, probably due to the fact that he always has girls throwing themselves at him. Perks of the job, you suppose.

V drops you off at your apartment with a deep kiss of gratitude, and he and the boys go off to celebrate their revenge tour at a different bar after you feign exhaustion. You sink onto your desk chair as soon as your door is closed behind you, and re-run through the events of the night.

You’d thought the conversation hadn’t been anything special, but looking back on it, Jaehyun had been weirdly vulnerable with you. From telling you about his mother’s dating advice to opening up about his Lucas Wong-induced worries, you’d talked more to him in that ten minute span than you have in the three years you’ve peripherally known him, and the year you’ve shared most of your classes together in.

You can’t allow yourself to take a single iota of time to dwell over the exact way his pretty pink lips had parted right before he’d tried to kiss you. Nope.

Beyond that, Jaehyun knows your secret now. It’d been written all over his face when he’d overheard V ask if you needed to study for ‘social media outreach.’ Good god, you’re in the danger zone now, and after what you’d pulled, there could definitely be a chance for retaliation from Jaehyun. You have a head start, you can formulate your excuses ahead of time. You’d imagine that V would never believe a word that comes out of Jaehyun’s mouth regarding you, but better safe than sorry. 

You’re still running through plausible justifications for a non-existent expose by Jaehyun, in the middle of your nighttime skin routine, when you hear a ping from your phone. You unlock it to see the notification:

> **onetwothreefourV** sent you a post by **drunkOSUthings**

You open the notification without a care, thinking V’s just sent you a meme off of one of the funny campus pages like he usually does.

But the moment you see the caption preview, spelling out, _**OSU COME GET YA MANS** , _there’s a trickle of terror that drips right down your neck.

It’s an out of body experience, the way you open the post and then you’re suddenly watching yourself on your own screen.Your face is turned just enough that no one can tell it’s you, but you recognize the same outfit you’d worn to the bar only a few hours ago. The thing you don’t recognize is the tender little smile on Jaehyun’s face, something you hadn’t picked up on when you’d been standing that close to him. Or his big hand curled gently around your arm, or the way his legs had shifted, so you’d been standing in between them as he talked to you.

You wince when his eyes close, because you know what’s coming, and your avoidance of him looks even more harshly blatant in the recording than it had felt when you’d done it. And though the footage is a little grainy and far away, the confusion and disappointment is written all over Jaehyun’s face when his eyes shoot open.

V’s very obvious, muted snickers come through on the video’s audio, and then it loops around from the beginning. You watch again, in sick fascination, at Jaehyun leaning in towards you over and over and over until his blonde hair becomes a yellow blur on the screen. V had filmed this. Filmed this! And sent it to the most popular OSU meme page.

You frantically scroll down from the video so you can’t watch it another time, and the wince develops into a stabbing pain in your side when you see that the post has already been liked thirty thousand times. That pain evolves into nausea when you take a scroll through the comments.

> Look at his face! He really went for it lmfaoooooo
> 
> Holy shit! That swerve loooooooooooool
> 
> PRESS F TO PAY RESPECTS
> 
> His game on the field is as bad as his game w girls LOL

At that last comment, the guilt comes flooding in, especially after what Jaehyun had told you during your conversation. You don’t realize you’ve even dialed V’s number until he answers with a satisfied, “Hey baby.”

“I didn’t realize you were going to post that,” you whisper, because that hadn’t been discussed once during your scheming. You’d naively believed him when he said he just wanted it to happen at a public location so he could watch.

“Of course I did,” you can practically hear the smug smirk on his face. “You think we were just going to sit there and do nothing?”

“But—,” you start to protest.

V cuts you off, and his tone turns dark and bitter, “He called me out in front of a three hundred person lecture for cheating, when I didn’t.A post on drunkOSU won’t hurt him.”

All you can muster is a lame, “Okay.”

“Cheer up! Drink a beer!” He orders, and the laughter of the other boys clues you into the fact you’re probably on speaker. “You humbled the big man on campus. Feel proud of that.”

He hangs up, and you’re not sure if you have anything to be proud of.

Sure, V had deserved to get comeuppance for being falsely accused, but you thought your fake out with Jaehyun would’ve been contained to 7th Sense’s. This is a public humiliation, widespread and grating, and the bigger accounts like Barstool Sports have begun to repost the video, hundreds of thousands of comments pouring in by the minute.

If you thought retaliation before was possible, it’s imminent now, the nuclear bomb of reality hovering over your head. Jaehyun must be furious at you. You brace yourself for the scathing instagram DM in V’s inbox, spilling all the deeply-buried truths about his girlfriend to him, but one never comes. You wait and wait, but V stays in the dark and Jaehyun never tells.

And to this day, you don’t understand why.

**tbc.**


	2. perhaps something

“I emailed my recruiter,” you start the next time you and Jaehyun meet up to work on game design. “I don’t know if it’ll get you a spot, but I did it.”

There’s a lot more that isn’t vocalized in that sentence, namely, _I may have realized I do owe you one_ , but the gratitude in Jaehyun’s eyes is enough to know that he understands what you’re saying.

“Thanks.”

“Why do you want Google so bad?” You can’t help but ask him.

It’s only now that you notice the blush extends to the tips of his ears when he’s embarrassed, “I haven’t gotten an interview anywhere else.”

That causes you to choke in surprise, “What?,” because this is know it all Jaehyun you’re talking about, probably the only person in the entire computer science major that can go toe to toe with you in your classes.

“Yeah, I’m not sure either. But I think they look at my resume, my name, all they see is OSU quarterback Jaehyun Jung, and think I’m not serious about it." There’s no bravado when he speaks about himself, he’s comes across as yet another twenty something that’s desperate for a job. “Plus, I don’t have that many internships since I always have to be here during the summer for camp.”

“I mean, do you blame them then?” You don’t intend for it to come across in a mean way, you know how competitive these applications can get. You’d done a summer at a tech startup in Cleveland and two summers in a row at Apple, and even then felt inadequate.

“I know,” Jaehyun admits with a heavy groan. “But I might not get drafted. I need a career if that doesn’t happen.”

You don’t know him well enough to tell if he’s being obnoxiously modest, and you lightly scoff, “Please, you play football for Ohio State, you’re on everyone’s radar.”

“Tell my anxiety that! Perhaps I should see you instead of my therapist,” Jaehyun jokes, but you can tell the delivery is a tad too stilted for it to be made up.

“Oh.” He sees a therapist for his anxiety? You didn’t know that, either.

“Anyways,” he sighs, trying to move past the personal information he’d inadvertently dropped. “The deal I made myself is that I’d have a job offer to present to my parents if I didn’t get drafted. Need interviews to do that. So, thanks.”

“Yeah,” you smile tightly, suddenly awkward. “Don’t mention it.”

Jaehyun turns back to his computer, typing away at something with a contented expression of relief. You’re suddenly consumed with the desire to do something, so you Google ‘Jaehyun Jung OSU NFL Draft’ and quickly find the link you’re looking for.

You cue up the video, which suddenly blasts at full volume, earning you a few annoyed looks from your fellow library-goers, and you rapidly quiet it so only you and your desk mate can hear. A familiar football analyst is at his desk, and Jaehyun’s stern roster photo flashes on the screen behind him.

“This is Mel Kiper with my early 2021 draft predictions. My first round sleeper pick is Jaehyun Jung, QB, Ohio State. A great start to the season has primed Jung for a huge bounce back year after a down junior season. If he can carry OSU through the playoffs he could soar to the top of the draft board.”

Jaehyun grimaces, closing his eyes and turning away from the screen once he sees himself, “Turn that off.”

“I can’t,” you grin devilishly, copying the link and flicking it into an endless repeat program. “Put it on a loop.”

The reporter’s deep voice drones on again, _My first round sleeper pick is Jaehyun Jung, QB, Ohio State. My first round sleeper pick is Jaehyun Jung, QB, Ohio State._

“Please,” he begs, as his picture continues to flash on the screen.

You deny his request, “Nope. Not until you say that you’re a good football player.”

“Alright, alright,” Jaehyun grumbles, albeit very begrudgingly. “I’m a good football player.”

You don’t know if he actually believes the words he says, but at least it’s a start. That allows you to sit back more comfortably in your chair. “Good. Now we can work on this in peace. According to this worksheet, we need to identify the end goal of the game, so we have a clear vision of what we’re working towards.”

“For our noble hero to reveal their true self to the world,” Jaehyun gives you a pointed head tilt.

You flash a sarcastic thumbs up. “Thinly veiled, thanks!”

“Seriously, why are you so deep into this?” He asks the eternal question.

“I don’t want —,” you start to avoid the query, but he cuts you off.

“Nuh uh,” he shakes his head. “We already had Jaehyun gets personal time. Your turn.”

There’s really no way to package this storyinto a five minute blurb you can spit at Jaehyun and move on from. The night you’d told Sehun all of it had spiraled into a drunken all nighter in which you cried out all the vodka you’d consumed. How can you tell Jaehyun the little details of your family and your relationship without breaking down into a complete mess here in the middle of the library? You can’t.

“No, like, I’m not trying to hide any more than you already know. It’s just, so fucked up and so hurtful on a very personal level I might actually start crying if I tell you the whole truth right now,” you already feel that familiar burn behind your eyes, how the tremble has already crept up into your voice.

Jaehyun stills, like he hadn’t expected that emotional reaction from you, “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” you sniff, trying to keep the tears at bay. “It’s my own fault.”

He lowers his voice in concern, “Listen, we can change the game if we want. It’s still in the planning stages. I didn’t realize it was that big of a thing for you.”

“It’s fine,” you mutter. “Irene likes it.”

“But—,”

“It’s fine,” you grit out harshly, and the two of you get back to working in silence.

If you can’t ever muster the courage to tell the truth about your life, at least you could live vicariously through the game you create.

—

“Hey, you look like shit,” Sehun greets you in a droll manner after you leave your webdev lecture the next Friday.

You don’t even bother insulting him back, only rubbing at the bags under your eyes, “Yeah, V was up all night worried about the Michigan State game tonight.”

You’d tried, to no avail, to sleep on the pillow next to him, but he’d stayed up until the sun came through the window, watching film on tonight’s opponents. This is a critical game. If the OSU soccer team wins, they’d go to the playoffs, if they tied, it’d all hinge on the game versus Northwestern next week, and if they lost, they’d be out. You really, really hope they don’t lose.

Jaehyun emerges from the lecture hall and waves right at you, and you wave absentmindedly in return, still thinking about how stressed out V had been in the morning.

Sehun catches that exchange with an extremely shocked look, “Did Jaehyun Jung just wave at you?”

Your brow furrows when you realize what you’d involuntarily done, been friendly to Jaehyun in public. And though you’ve never told Sehun all the details of the ins and outs of your whatever-it-is-ship, you need to tell him this, “He knows.”

“What?” Sehun coughs over the straw in his iced coffee. “I mean I recognize you guys run in somewhat of the same circle. To put it euphemistically.”

“He’s my machine learning and game design partner. He’s also in my webdev discussion section. We had artificial intelligence together last semester,” you list out all of the classes you’ve shared together over the past year. “Hard to hide at that point.”

“Oh shit. He hates V.”

“I know.”

“And he hasn’t told?”

“No,” you mutter, looking at Jaehyun’s blonde hair through the window of the building. “He’s known since the 7th Sense’s debacle of last year.”

“I mean, I say with with no offense, but after what you did, I’d expected him to write Y/N IS A COMPUTER SCIENCE WORSHIPING NERD in the sky,” Sehun puts his arms up like he’s picturing the message, and you’ve pictured a much darker version yourself. FUCK YOU Y/N, YOU LYING BITCH. Something like that.

You sigh deeply, “I know, I still live half in fear that the other shoe could drop.”

Of course it’s run through your mind that the taciturn politeness he treats you with now is just a front designed to lure you into letting your guard down. So he can attack you with reality when you least expect it.

You suddenly have to tell Sehun the other ridiculous thing you’d done, “I, I purposefully tried to tank my Google interview because of that.”

Sehun nearly hits himself with the door he’d been opening, “What?!”

“He cornered me and said I owed him for the incident, so I caved and emailed my recruiter trying to defer,” you explain.

“You didn’t,” Sehun can’t believe you, and you almost can’t believe you either.

“I did,” you confirm as you walk out of the building together. “Gave them a glowing fucking review of him even though I didn’t have to. Wendy said she’d take my offer into consideration, but they still wanted me to come and do the interview. I don’t know what happened on his end. The interview’s this week and he hasn’t said anything.”

You’d surreptitiously tried to peek at his inbox when you’d worked together, but you couldn’t find any plane tickets booked to New York in his emails. You really hope he’d gotten the interview.

V appears out of nowhere, blue hair sparkling in the afternoon sun, and he looks totally confused, “Why were you in the computer science building?”

“She came to say hi to me,” Sehun drawls, lazily drinking from his cup as he saves you from fumbling for an excuse. V’s attention is caught by something else, you take that moment to mouth _thank you_ at your friend.

Sehun pats you on the head, ever the loyal secret keeper, “Gotta run, Suho’s office hours are about to start.”

He disappears back inside the computer science building just as Jimin and Jungkook materialize next to your fiancé. The group of them are peering off into the distance, at a different group of guys that’s chatting on the green, and in retrospect, you should’ve seen what comes next.

“What up, choker!” Jimin hollers, loudly and obviously towards the other circle.

You see a tall head of brown hair turn to see who’d shouted, and there’s pure anger written all over Johnny Suh’s face, even from here. Uh, oh. He’d dropped the game winning pass in the last game versus Iowa, the undefeated season only saved by a last minute field goal made by Mark. Johnny’s mistake has been all over the college football forums, and Jimin’s comment had been designed to induce specific torture.

“Hey, pussies! Hope you lose to Michigan State!” Johnny shouts back, but doesn’t move, clearly wanting to limit this exchange to trash talk.

V’s face turns this particular shade of purple that clashes directly with his hair, and he explodes, “What did you say?! What did you say?!”

Oh boy, here we go.

“Come here and say it to my face!” V is ferally screaming now, throwing down his bag and advancing towards Johnny.

“You fucking asshole, you ain’t shit!” Jungkook backs his teammate up as Jimin whips off his sweater to get comfortable.

Jaehyun and Mark Lee are of course the other two in the crowd of guys, and the latter is laughing his little head off at the display of hostility, “You guys missing the playoffs would be fucking hilarious!”

“Tell that to your friend,” Jimin spits in Johnny’s direction. “Going to be working a minimum wage job, he can’t catch a ball to save his li—,”

You watch in devoted horror as Johnny’s fist comes crashing down right on Jimin’s cheek.

That one punch detonates the screaming match into a physical dogfight. The moment Jimin tries to swing his fist in retaliation, Mark steps in front of his friend and gets whacked right in the eye. Jaehyun instinctively goes into attack mode at Mark’s groan of pain, and he tackles Jimin to the ground, the two of them shouting and rolling in the grass as they grapple to inflict the most damage with their fists.

V and Jungkook go after Johnny, and though he’s bigger than both of them, it’s two against one, and the soccer players land several blows across his face and torso. Mark blindly stumbles around, trying to do what he can to help his teammate, but from where you’re standing, you can see that his fists are missing their targets, and there’s crimson blood bubbling out of his nose. You glance around the quad in a frenzy, there’s barely anyone around, but you know they’ll all get suspended from their respective teams if this goes on for any longer.

Well, you guess you’re doing this.

“Stop it! Stop!” You yell as you run to where the men are engaging in their foolery and you throw yourself in the middle of the fracas. You grab the first arm you see and tug with all your might, pulling an injured Mark right out of the fight.

“Hey, are you okay?” You gasp, your hands fluttering over his face as he shivers in pain.

Mark’s eyes squeeze closed and he shakes his head no, and without a second thought you wrap an arm around his waist, murmuring, “Come on, let’s get you to the trainer.”

The fighting is still going on, and V’s got a hand wrapped around Johnny’s arm, squeezing and twisting it roughly when he spots you tiptoeing away from the group. Once he drops Johnny from his grasp, it’s as if he’s cast a spell of stillness over the fight.

V eyes you and Mark suspiciously and sneers, “Where are you going?”

“I am the only responsible one here, so I will take him to the trainer,” you calmly explain, tilting Mark’s head so they can see the cerise blood smearing over the bottom of his face.

The group of men are all standing now, scraped and bruised but none as brutally abused as Mark had been from Jimin’s blocked punch. You can’t handle this fragile display of hurt masculinity, you’d expected more from them, especially from Jaehyun, especially from V. You feel so bad for Mark, who’d just been sticking up for his teammate in a loyally naive way.

“Disperse! Now!” You order, voice going shrill with adrenaline. “Before someone realizes who was just fighting and gets you all in trouble!”

Their faces blanch, like they hadn’t realized that they easily could be put on the bench from their respective teams for this incident. You roll your eyes and turn to help Mark walk away, not even catching the audible grunt of pain that rings out from behind your turned back.

“I am so sorry,” you keep your voice low to not cause Mark any more pain. “Can you see?”

“Not really,” he moans, and you see how his right eye is completely swollen shut.

“Fuck, give me your arm,” you offer, more of his weight crushing onto you as you walk him through campus towards where the football facilities are.

You feel his hair brush your neck as Mark leans his head into your shoulder, lips babbling, “You are so nice.”

Your nose crinkles fondly at the compliment, “You say that like it’s a surprise.”

“It is. You’re dating Kim,” Mark says with such disgust you almost stop in the middle of the sidewalk. You recognize that there’s tension between the two groups, but the level of vitriol coming from this obviously sweet boy should be concerning.

You avoid the subject as best as you can, “Nice kick last week. Ice cold.”

Then you grimace again, because if Mark can’t see, he certainly can’t kick this weekend. What a disaster this has become.

You’re right outside the double doors to the football training facility when you hear frantic footsteps running up behind you. You shift Mark in your arms to see Johnny and Jaehyun, red-faced and panting, and they quickly take their teammate out of your grasp.

“Hey, Porky, I’m so sorry,” Jaehyun sniffs as he pats Mark’s cheek softly. “Ran here as fast as I could.”

Johnny is completely distraught as well, “Yeah, P, it was my fault. I threw the first punch.”

You stand there and soak in the funny little spectacle of brotherly love until you catch a glimpse of something totally upsetting. Your vision has been partially obscured by Mark’s fluffy hair, and now that he’s out of your way, you see all of it. The way Jaehyun’s lip is completely busted up, huge cut slashing across from under his nose to his chin.

“Oh my god, Jaehyun,” you gasp. “Your face.”

“Sorry, tiny, R is a real fucking asshole,” he curses, tongue darting out to the drawn blood.

“V punched you?” You can’t believe it.

“He tried to punch John again when your back was turned,” he mutters, like he didn’t really want to tell you the truth. “And I got in his way.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Johnny apologizes, head low in contrition.

“Jimin started the confrontation. Sure, you escalated, but…” you don’t know what to say, can’t say something like _I don’t blame you,_ because that’s not where your loyalties lie. “Ah, I’m in no place to be giving you a lecture. I’ll try to talk to them.”

“We’ll take him in from here,” Jaehyun nods at you. “Thanks.”

You wait until the three of them disappear inside of the building, and then you’re taking off again. You’re already in that part of campus, so it doesn’t take you long to get to the soccer stadium, Jackson on the security team recognizing you and letting you in through the players’ entrance. You have your argument ready the moment you see V outside the locker room, lying in wait like he’d known you’d come.

He doesn’t give you even a second before he accuses you, “You took their side.”

You freeze, physically stunned that that’s the conclusion he’d come to. Mark had been the most injured out of all of them, you’d only been trying to do the right thing. You’d come right here anyways, it’s not like you’d given up seeing his game to fuss over some football players. Even if, maybe, that’s what you’d wanted to to do.

“I did no such thing,” you deny. “He was the only one of you bleeding, and needed that to be dealt with.”

V’s voice raises in decibel, like he’s still out there fighting, “They said they hoped we lost to Michigan State! You know how important this game is!”

“I know, and I’m here. I never defended what they said,” you say honestly, because you didn’t, and you know that that had been wrong of Johnny to do.

V’s face suddenly crumbles as tears start leaking out from his closed eyes and he slumps onto the floor. You recognize the evident exhaustion dashed all over his face, the lack of sleep, the worry, the anxiety about the impending game. It’s hard to have that sort of pressure he does, to perform and perform well, to lead his teammates as a senior, to make sure he’s always on for whatever recruits might be watching. He’s Taehyung Kim, the guy who’d won the collegiate championship as a freshman. He has a certain standard to uphold.

You figure that if that encounter had started on any other day, V wouldn’t have been primed to react in that way as a result of his stress. You’ll have to explain this to Jaehyun later, maybe he’ll find enough empathy in his heart to understand.

You sit down on the floor beside him, then you tuck a hand into the crook of his elbow and lean yourself into him, whispering, “Hey, I’m here. It’s fine. I love you.”

“Ah,” he chuckles humorlessly at his over-the-top reaction. “I love you too.”

“You’re going to be great out there,” you reassure him with tenderness as you wipe at his cheeks with your sleeve, kissing him once on the cheek, and then once on the mouth.

“Thank you,” V whispers in your hair as he reaches to hug you tightly. “Sorry.”

This is the only part of an athlete wife’s life you feel like you’re cut out for, being there for V when it matters most. Him knowing that you’ll always have his back no matter what, that you’ll always choose to see the best in him no matter what. It is enough of a reward to see the determination flashing in his eyes when he pulls back to softly kiss you one more time, that he’s set on dominating this game. That he won’t let the fight get to his head.

That is so much like the true man you know and love that you’re going to help him as much as you can. You devise a master plan the moment you spot famed LA Galaxy scout RM Kim in the stands. He’s sitting alone, not many have seemed to notice him, and you do your best to feign nonchalance as you slide onto the bleacher next to him.

“Hi,” you greet, like you haven’t recognized him.

RM smiles politely at you. “Hi.”

“You here for someone?” You wonder out loud, pretending not to know exactly who he’s here to watch.

“No one in particular,” he responds coolly. “Just a fan. You?”

You subtly shift your hand so he can't see the glittering rock on your finger, “Just a fan as well. Heard great things about the team captain.”

“Taehyung Kim?” His interest is piqued now, and you let out a vapid giggle, hoping to conceal your identity as his fiancée for as long as you can.

“Yeah.”

RM laughs, “Good to know.”

You charm RM fully, chat his ear off about V to the best of your ability, and even though the game only ends in a tie, OSU’s lone goal scored by your fiancé, it feels like things are going to be okay.

Especially so when you get a text later from an unknown number. The text consists of a selfie of Mark, eye puffy and purple, smiling holding a thumbs up, and ‘cleared for sat! thank u for helping me!!!!’ with three double pink heart emojis.

You leave Mark’s number contactless, so that his presence in your phone won’t be obvious, but you respond with a goofy selfie of your own.

—

Your heeled foot is tapping nervously against the tile when you hear someone call your name, “Y/n?”

You turn around towards the entrance of the lobby, and your eyes bug out of your head, “Jaehyun? Your hair!”

The football player no longer has blonde tresses, they’re a dark, dark black now, that matches the sparkling onyx of his eyes. When you get close enough, you see that he’s concealed the remnants of the cuts on his mouth with makeup, giving him an unblemished appearance. That together with his navy and white pinstriped suit, makes Jaehyun look elegantly intimidating in the midst of all of the other interviewees. You can’t help the thrill of satisfaction, because the fact that he’s here means he’d gotten off the waitlist.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

“I’m interviewing for Google,” you show him the name tag on the collar of your blazer.

“Wait, you’re interviewing for Google?” His face scrunches in confusion. “I’m interviewing for Google.”

He’s probably under the assumption that you had actually given up your spot for him, and you clarify sheepishly, “Yeah, I told you I emailed my recruiter. But Wendy insisted I still do the interview.”

“Of course they did, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hire tiny,” he grumbles, but he doesn’t seem totally mad about it.

“Shut up.”

“I got pulled off the waitlist yesterday, had to take the last flight out of Columbus.”

“The hair?” You need to know the answer to this one.

“Dyed it in a hurry, didn’t think they’d like the blonde,” he divulges, and suddenly the two of you are laughing away in the middle of everyone.

A professional looking woman wearing a Google employee lanyard makes her way out into the waiting area and announces, “Candidates one through ten? Come with me.”

You glance down at your name tag, the unlucky number seven standing menacingly in the corner, and you feel your palms get clammy. This is it, your first real world interview, the first step towards a freer life. If you get this, this would solve a lot of your problems. 

“Eleven through twenty? This way,” another male employee addresses the group, and you glance at Jaehyun’s tag. He’s somehow gotten lucky enough to get twelve, his jersey number. That might be a good sign for him, but you would’ve liked to have him around during your interview. Familiar face and all that.

Jaehyun picks up on your nerves and brushes your elbow with his, whispering, “Hey, knock ‘em dead,” before he follows his group away.

You steel yourself with the largest breath you can muster, thinking of seventeen-year-old you, and what she would say, then you go with your competition up to your interview.

Later that day, when the afternoon sun has dipped low into the afternoon sky, you’re wiping the nervous sweat off of your brow when you see someone familiar loitering on a bench by the building’s entrance.

“Jaehyun?”

He springs up, suit jacket in hand, face lined with curiosity, “How’d it go?”

“You waited?” Is all that comes tumbling out of your mouth, because there’s nothing you want to do more than collapse and sleep right now.

He shrugs. “Thought we could walk back to the hotel together.”

Oh. Why are you so touched?

He holds the door open for you, and the two of you set about strolling the Manahttan streets. It’s pretty much the perfect fall afternoon, and you soak in the sights and sounds of an actual city on your short walk to the hotel.

When you’re about halfway back you can’t hold it in any longer, “It was fine. I guess, I don’t know. The behavioral part was easy, I think I did as well on that as I could. But I nearly ran out of time on the project they gave me to code. I think I got it done but I have no idea if it actually worked. No time to debug.”

You’re going to leave out the part where you just stared at the computer for ten minutes, too afraid to put your fingers on the keyboard and start typing. Too much internalized trauma. If you’d gotten your shit together at the start, maybe you would’ve seen if the program worked. Nothing you can do now.

Jaehyun hasn’t said anything, so you turn the question back at him, “How’d it go for you?”

“The opposite,” he mutters.

“Explain.”

He runs a hand through his hair, causing the gelled strands of ivory to stick up everywhere, then starts, “The coding project was a cakewalk, something we could’ve done in sophomore year or something. But the behavioral part was just question after question about why I wanted this job over football. They definitely didn’t believe I would commit to a tech job.”

You finally pick up on his disappointment, palpable in his anxious frown, and you can’t help the curse, “Ah, shit.”

“Ah, shit is right,” there’s a pained laugh from him, then he shrugs, “But it’s over. Who knows.” After he’s paused for a second, he then blurts, "Do you want to get dinner?”

There’s a Chipotle on the corner you’re on, snuggling up with a burrito bowl in bed sounds exactly like what you want to do right now, but your watch pings with a schedule reminder. You groan, “My sister and I are getting drinks at the hotel. Sorry.”

Jaehyun looks more disappointed now than he had about his interview, “Alright. I guess I’ll see you back on campus then.”

You wait until Jaehyun disappears inside the Chipotle before you finish walking up the block. You’re blasted with a warm gush of heat upon entering the Hilton, and you don’t have to look long before you spot a woman enthusiastically waving at you.

“Lima bean! Hi!”

You grind your teeth at the nickname, but paste on a smile so you can hug your sister. After the day you’ve had, her loving embrace is enough to ease some of the tension in your shoulders. And you’d never say this out loud, but you’re glad she didn’t bring Reggie or the baby. You need some sister time.

“Hi, Nicole,” you let her take your hand as you walk towards the bar. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

They put you in a corner of the room next to the huge glass window, so after you’ve ordered drinks you can look out into the setting sun and swirling city business. Nicole marvels at the sight, “Wow, they’ve really set you up in luxury. What was the interview again?”

Fuck, you’d been so preoccupied with interview prep, you hadn’t even come up with a viable excuse. You spit out the first thing that comes to mind, “Uh, Prada’s marketing team.”

“Of course, my baby sister wouldn’t settle for anything but the best,” she doesn’t seem fazed by the extravagant company name. “Even in high school, you were an overachiever. Robotics club president, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you nod, bashful. “Thanks.”

“So, are you trying to take a job here with the chance Taehyung might be across the country?”

You choke on the first gulp of wine you’ve taken, “Y-yeah, why not?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole hums as she takes a sip from her Shirley Temple. “It doesn’t make sense for the two of you to be married and living in two different cities. But maybe you could try it. At least it's not Cleveland.”

“It’s not like we’re going to get married right after graduation. We can be engaged and living apart,” you say, because if you get this job, you’re definitely moving to New York. Plus, you don’t want to be twenty-one and married. You can wait until you’re at least like twenty-five.

Your sister looks at you like you’re speaking nonsense. “Well, but why not? Reg and I got married as soon as we were done with OSU. Prada must have an LA office. I know you like to do your own thing, but it’ll be hard.” Google does have an LA office, but you’re going to keep that information to yourself.

“I don’t know, I never saw myself getting married at twenty one, no matter how much I love V,” you admit.

“Think of what mom would do,” Nicole gently reminds you, and you wish that she hadn’t. That only causes your nausea to spike, a gigantic gallon of guilt pouring itself over you. You should be more like your mother, more like Dara, Sunny, and Nicole, and each day that you’re not is another spike in your conscience.

You gulp down more of your wine as Nicole claps her hands together happily, “Speaking of mom, are you excited for your engagement party? It’s only a few weeks away now!”

Quite frankly, you’d seen your mom’s email about her plans for an engagement party and immediately archived it without a response. But your lack of reply has not stopped it from happening, apparently, which means that V had been replying for both of you. You make a mental reminder to look for the followup emails about the details so you can be appropriately prepared.

“Totally,” you answer politely. “It’ll be nice to see everyone again.”

Nicole leans back in her chair and sighs fondly, “Ah, I wish I was your age again, things were so easy then.”

Her reaction triggers a flood of emotion inside you. You’re overwhelmed with the urge to confess everything to her, “Nikki, can I tell you some—,”

Her phone goes off at the exact moment you’re about to tell her the truth, and she rushes to answer it, “Hello? Uh huh, uh huh. Okay, I’ll come now.”

“Sorry, that was the hubs,” she explains apologetically. “I’ve gotta run early, the baby won’t stop screaming.”

This could be your life in a few years, not even being able to step out for a drink before you’re being called back to take care of a baby your husband can’t handle. You’d barely talked to your sister for even fifteen minutes. Reggie is a nice guy, really, but Nicole does everything for him. You can’t see yourself doing the same. You can’t see yourself asking her to stay so you can tell her the truth about your life, either.

“It’s okay,” you wave her apology off. “Love you.”

Nicole hugs you fiercely, kissing the side of your head, “Love you too, lima bean.”

You really, really wonder what her reaction would’ve been.

You slowly lumber through the hotel’s lobby after finishing your drink and paying your bill, fatigue of the day taking over. You’ve done more contemplation of your future than you intend. You don’t want to think about what it means when you see Jaehyun walking into the hotel and your body floods with relief.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How was seeing your sister?” He asks.

You rub at your neck with a tired smile. “Exhausting, as always.”

“Something tells me I’m not supposed to ask about that,” he jokes, as he calls the elevator and holds the door open for you.

“You’re right about that,” you affirm, hitting the button for your floor, then his.

You don’t want to bore him with the details of your siblings. You’d only agreed to this meeting with Nicole because she’s the sole one of your sisters who’d actually taken an interest in keeping up with your developing personality. Unlike Sunny and Dara, who you sometimes feel only view you as the runt of the litter.

You ride up the floors in comfortable silence, and you’re half a step out of the elevator before you turn and stick your arm out to prevent the doors from closing.

“Hey listen, I’m going to relax and turn the OSU-Northwestern game on, if you want to hang while I pack,” you offer, before you realize just who you’re talking to and backtrack, “oh sorry, I’m such an idiot. You probably don’t want to watch soccer.”

Jaehyun laughs, melodic and charming, and he steps off the elevator, “No, that’s. That’s fine.”

That’s how you find yourself letting Jaehyun Jung into your hotel room, babbling mindlessly to fill the suddenly charged air, “V was so pissed I was going to miss the game, so I at least have to watch. You know how it is.”

You turn the TV onto ESPN2, and though you’ve missed almost three-fourths of the game, the score is still tied 0-0. This is it, the biggest matchup of the season. Win or tie, and they’re in, lose and they’re done.

Jaehyun flops onto your bed without even asking, loosening his tie before he says, “I’d never be pissed about you missing a game for something as important as an interview.”

There’s the jab he has to get in, that you should be telling V the truth, and you roll your eyes, “Subtle.”

Jaehyun’s eyes follow the streak of blue hair flashing across the screen, then he tells you, “You know, I played soccer and football in high school. There was a chance we could’ve been teammates.”

You bark out a harsh laugh. He and your fiancé are like fire and ice, sun and moon, too different to ever coexist peacefully. It’s definitely a good thing they ended up on separate teams. “All I can say to that is yikes.”

He props himself up on his elbow so he can look at you hovering by the desk chair, too nervous to join him on the bed. “You obviously know about the history there, then.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me I know the one sided history,” you cheekily challenge him.

“Sure,” he shrugs, but makes no move to start an argument. “But he’s your boyf— fiancé. I certainly won’t change your mind.”

You put your hands on your hips and fix Jaehyun with a defiant stare. “Oh yeah? Try it.”

“No, no. We’re in New York City after interviewing for Google, we deserve a break from that shit,” he murmurs, as he looks back up to the ceiling.

As if his words call out to you, you choose that moment to collapse onto the mattress beside him, the two of you hushed and contemplative over the stressful day you’ve just been through. In that moment, with only the sounds of the soccer game in the background, you truly feel like Jaehyun is the only one in the world who understands you.

“Did you always want to become a software engineer?” He asks out of the blue.

“Did you always want to become a professional football player?” You retort.

“Touche.”

“I really think this is what I was born to do,” you admit out loud, for the first time ever. “Is that sad?”

“No, because it’s obvious how good you are at it,” he praises you effortlessly, and the blush is spiraling into your cheeks when he quietly confesses, “my therapist says my anxiety clouds my natural inclination for football.”

He’s doing it again, revealing something intimidatingly personal to you, leaving you dumbfounded and confused as how to respond. You really don’t think you’re close enough for him to be telling you this, but you’re not strangers, so you take the middle route and respond with a joke, “Ugh, cocky bastard. You get to be unearthly good at two things.”

He nudges your shoulder with his, chuckling, “Is that a compliment?”

“Don’t get used to it,” you mutter, but there’s a smile on your face that you can’t deny.

The minute you both stop talking there’s a sharp, startling cry that comes from the TV, “And Northwestern scores in extra time! Ohio State has just been eliminated from the playoffs!”

“Oh shit,” you curse just as Jaehyun spits, “holy fuck.”

You sit up, in comical slow motion, as the camera does a pained zoom on V, slumped on his knees in front of the net as a hugging group of players in purple celebrate in the background. They lost. Ohio State lost.

Just like you’ve been around for all of V’s best games, specifically the title clincher your first year, you’ve also been around for a variety of heartbreakers. The first round playoff loss sophomore year, and the close game in the second round junior year, but nothing feels as jarring as this one. There are a few games left on the schedule, but V will have to play them knowing he won’t go to the playoffs, knowing that his college soccer career will come to an abrupt end.

You have no idea what the hell to do, he’s not going to be able to answer his phone for a few hours, you’re states away with your flight not scheduled until late tomorrow. What on earth could you even say to the person you hold most dear to make it better? How do you heal a broken heart? Should you call your parents instead, ask them to have the sports section of the paper not printed tomorrow? They own the damn thing, they should be able to help you out.

There’s a bunch of rustling, and you look over to see Jaehyun throwing your scattered clothes into your open suitcase.

“What are you doing?!” You exclaim.

“Packing your stuff!” He explains in a hurry, shoving your things into the open space of your luggage. “You need to get back to Ohio tonight.”

“What?!”

Jaehyun fixes you with a stare you can’t decipher, and you’re drawn into him as he softly says, “Listen, if you were my girl, and I just played in the best or worst game of my life, doesn’t matter, you’d be the first person I’d want to see.”

That’s that situational empathy he holds for your fiancé, no matter how much they don’t see eye to eye, and he’s right. You jump into action, gathering up your laptop and wallet to begin packing your purse, “Fuck, you’re right.”

“Call your recruiter and tell them it’s an emergency. They’ll switch your flight,” he zips up your bag and wheels it over to the door. “Go now, there probably are a few flights still left. I’ll check the room and bring anything you’ve forgotten back.”

“Thanks.” You wave goodbye to Jaehyun as you leave the hotel room, so moved by what he’s done for you.

Then you’re off to the races, frantically calling Wendy the moment you’re in the Uber to JFK. You don’t know how she works her voodoo magic, but she does, and an hour later you’re in the very last row of the final flight to Columbus that night. It’s the worst trip of your life, consumed by the visions of what awaits you once you get back to campus. What do you even do first? Do you kiss him? Do you wait for V to let it all out? Do you even try and go see him right away tonight or do you let him cool off?

It’s well past two am by the time the car you’re in rolls up to V’s place, and Jaehyun’s words ring in your ears when you hesitate on the sidewalk. _If you were my girl, and I just played in the best or worst game of my life, doesn’t matter, you’d be the first person I’d want to see._ Fuck it.

You enter the building code and run up the stairs to the third floor, not bothering to wait for the elevator. Your fist knocks out a ruckus on his door, you don’t care that they’re probably already asleep inside. There’s no answer for a few seconds, so you pick up the intensity of your knocks, getting frantic that you’re going to have to go look for V on campus. He can’t still be at the field, can he?

Your fist misses the wood completely when the door swings open.

You’re greeted by the sight of your fiancé, and it’s a thousand times worse than you even could’ve imagined. His eyes are so swollen, so puffy with the tears you know he’s shed since the loss, dark, dark bags of purple cratering into his cheeks, blue hair still damp from his shower, but forehead matted with an anxious sweat. The most heart wrenching part of it is how the defeat is just radiating off of him, in waves and waves of agony that shatter right into you.

“V,” you whisper.

He has to be dumbfounded at the sight of you, but he can’t muster anything but a faint, “You’re supposed to be in New York.”

“Yeah,” your voice breaks completely over that one syllable, eyes burning. “I came right away.”

That’s what does him in, and he nearly topples over as he starts to sob. You barely catch him before the two of you sink down onto the ground, wrapped around each other in a borderless embrace, his hands clutching at you so tightly, like he’s afraid he’ll lose you like he’d lost the game.

“Oh, my love,” you murmur into his cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

You hold V on the floor of his apartment, door still wide open, as he cries and cries and cries himself into an exhaustion. Then you help him into bed and cuddle up next to him, because that is what you’re supposed to do.

—

You have your code open on half of your screen, with the other half split between your email and your messages with V so you can keep an eye on him, when you see that a new email has made its way into your inbox.

You close your work on _At the Heart of It All_ ’s command prompts and maximize the window so you can take a better look. Your heart stills when you read the subject line, _Information regarding your first round interview with Google._

“Oh, fuck,” you swear. “I got an email from Google.”

Jaehyun looks over from where he’d been tweaking the various user interfaces for your game, “Remind me again before you check?”

“Return offer from Apple, final round for Facebook, didn’t like the LinkedIn team so probably going to scrap it, and rejected from Amazon,” you list all of the recent developments in your job hunt.

“Final round for that tech startup and I guess the NFL,” Jaehyun answers his own question in a breezy tone.

“Hilarious,” you deadpan, then you take a peek at his open email, reading a twin subject line, “wait, you got yours too?

His mouse cursor shakes over the unopened message as his fingers tremble, “Yeah, I didn’t want to open it because of tonight, but if you have yours now.”

You don’t want to pressure him to do this, but he looks determined, so you sit on your crossed fingers and brace yourself. “Okay, on three. One, two, three.”

> _Dear y/n,_
> 
> _Thank you for interviewing for the position - software engineer - here at Google. We are delighted to extend you an invitation to complete a final round of interviews on-site at the Google headquarters in New York City._

“Ah! Fuck! I passed!” You exclaim in surprise, delight beaming in your chest at your hard-earned victory. You then realize that there’s dead silence emanating from the chair next to you. “Jaehyun? Jaehyun?”

He’s staring at his screen, mouth hung open, and you can’t believe it, there’s no way he got rejected again. You blatantly push your head towards his screen, skipping past the opening sentence of the email to get to the most important part… the sentence that starts with _We are delighted._

“Ah! Jaehyun!” You scream, even more excited than you had been to see your own email. “You passed!”

His lips open and close several times, like an electrocuted fish, and then he childishly trills with glee, “I’m so happy!”

“Me too!” You slap his hand in a high five, and you really can’t believe it. You’re one interview away from being an employee at Google, and so is Jaehyun.

“Hey, are you coming to the game?” He asks breathlessly, as you both continue to ride your high of success. “We should celebrate after.”

Whoosh, it feels like all of the joy is sucked right out of the air at that.

The smile slides right off your face, “Ah, no.”

“It’s the last home game of the season,” his face matches yours, the expression of happiness on it dissolving away.

Of course you know that it’s the last home game of the season. One last game to preserve the football team’s perfect record at Ohio Stadium, the second to last game of the year.

Your voice goes so quiet you barely hear it over the tinny library silence, “I know, but uh. I have my engagement party.”

“Oh.”

You rush to explain, blithering along in a hasty excuse, “V has been so down since they were knocked out of the playoffs, it’ll be good for him to see his family.”

“Right,” Jaehyun says tightly. “Congratulations again to you and M.”

“Sorry,” you can’t stop the apology from bursting from you. “That I’m missing your game.”

Why the fuck are you apologizing? This isn’t something dumb like you’re dyeing Sehun’s hair for him or making late-night nachos by yourself, this is your _engagement party._ No matter how much you sort of detest the idea, it’s still important to your family.

He works in silence for a few minutes, and you think he’s legitimately mad about this. But then, very, very quietly, he says, “I’d never be pissed about you missing a game for something as important as an engagement party.”

That little phrase deliciously pirouettes in your ear even after you’ve left the library, even after you’ve made yourself comfortable by the bar at the Columbus country club. You don’t know half the people here, most are your parents’ friends, or V’s. You won’t allow yourself to think how much more you’d rather be out watching football right now.

The only breath of fresh air is Sehun’s displeased presence, the pinch in his nose visible when he places himself in your personal space so that no one else can. It helps that his aura comes off rich, because your parents would probably throw a fit if they knew what sort of middle class household he comes from.

“Thank god you’re here,” you mutter.

“You’d better be,” he grumbles, fiddling with his phone in hand. “Because I’m missing the game.”

“Me too!”

You look over at his phone, and there’s the pixelated image of a green football field, scarlet dots of the jerseys running back and forth. Sehun watches with great interest as he sips his free cocktail, and you nearly knock the drink out of his hand in your haste to grab his phone.

“Give me that, how’d you get this?” You feel the pride dot into you when you see the Buckeyes are already up 21-0.

Sehun plucks the phone from your hand with a smirk, “ESPN live stream. Use your cable login.”

“You’re a genius,” you pat him on the arm as you pull up the video on your own screen.

That’s why you’re sat here now, phone in hidden in the folds of your purple skirt, screen tilted away from your fiancé so he can’t see what you’re watching. You’re a master at playing your role, so you look up when you have to, and say all the right things to keep the conversation flowing, but the moment the topic moves away from you, you’re back watching the football game, watching the way Jaehyun methodically picks apart the Michigan defense. 

“Y/n? Y/n, get off your phone please,” your father catches a moment where your eye level dips below the table, and you quickly shut off your phone to see what you’ve missed.

“Y/n interviewed at Prada a few weeks ago,” he then informs the table. You hadn’t even told him that details, so you assume that means either V or Nicole tattled on you. “How great would it be if she ended up in New York?”

“Our families would have three kids there,” V’s mother exclaims with excitement. “Nicole, Seokjin after he moves for his new job in the spring, and y/n.”

You’ve been dating V for almost five years now and still don’t know what his brother does for a career. But him being in New York means you’d have to be extra careful, if you were to get a job in the city.

“Ah, but y/n will probably transfer to the LA office, right?” V questions you, out of the blue, and suddenly every single pair of eyes is turned to you.

“I what?” You glance over to Sehun, who’s coughing into his napkin.

“I won’t hear from the Galaxy until January, but RM Kim liked me a lot,” V informs the table, though this conversation had started between the pair of you. You’d run your mouth about him to RM and you’d thought his impression of your fiancé had been positive, but for V to so confidently announce that to everyone?

“Even after you guys didn’t make the playoffs?” Your father asks bluntly.

“Dad!” You hiss.

V’s father waves you off, “No, it’s a fair question.”

You glance to the man beside you, and V is beyond pissed, jaw corded with tension as he fights to keep himself calm. There’s no reason for that to be brought up on a night that’s meant to be a celebration. You know he’s still not over the loss to Northwestern, how he probably won’t be for a long time. It hurts even more knowing how hard he works to please his father, who clearly isn’t satisfied with the fact that his son won’t be playing in the playoffs.

V stabs at a piece of steak with his fork in a particularly savage manner, then sharply declares, “It’s fine though, I’ll make an MLS team even if it’s not with the Galaxy. Y/n will come with me, right?”

“Of course she will,” your mother answers for you before you even have the chance to open your mouth. “It makes no sense for the two of you to be married and living separately.”

From across the table, Nicole shoots you a tiny, sympathetic head dip, as if to say _see? I told you_. You should’ve believed her, she is her mother’s daughter in every way. If only you were the same.

All you can do is pretend that you are, when you answer, “Right,” and fake that you still have an appetite to eat the rest of your dinner.

You miss the rest of the game, but find out from a very enthusiastic text from an unsaved number _(Mark)_ that WE FUCKING ROCKED OHIO STADIUM! PERFECT RECORD LIVES BABY!

—

In between the hurricane of torture that was finals and the final interview that is looming tomorrow, it only makes sense that you want to spend some quality time with your fiancé before you make the trip back to New York.

You’re on the loveseat in V’s apartment as he works on his last assignment of the semester and Jungkook fries bacon in the background. There’s a groan from V, and then he complains, “I can’t log into my student portal.”

You look up from your computer, “Did you clear your cookies?”

“My what?”

“Never mind, come here and do it on mine,” you offer, opening up your own student portal so you can clear yourself out of it.

V drapes himself over the loveseat arm, eyes narrowing when he catches something on the screen, “Whoa, why are you listed under the engineering department? Isn’t that weird?”

You’d completely forgotten the blurb under your name, tiny letters spelling out _School of Engineering._ Which isn’t a mistake, considering the computer science major falls under that department.

You hastily click the logout button so that the screen goes blank and he can’t read anymore. “That’s so weird. It must be a mistake. I swore it said School of the Arts when I checked my grades this morning. Anyways, put in your login.”

He does, typing in his username and password, and you’re greeted with the same screen you’d just seen. However, instead of a blank line under where it says _School of the Arts_ , there’s a shiny red asterisk with a notification blaring **ACADEMIC PROBATION TO BE LIFTED 12/18/20**. What in the fuck?

“You’re on academic probation?” You question, totally shocked.

“Hey, that’s private!” V tries to reach for your computer, but you’re too fast, fingers already flicking the mouse to click on the link.

Sure, it might be an invasion of privacy, but you need to know what this is about. If he’s struggling in his classes, you can help. There’s only a small box that loads on the next page, two threatening sentences: _From the complaint lodged on April 23, 2020, the student’s academic probation will extend until the end of the following semester, December 18, 2020. Another mark on the student’s record, and they will be recommended for expulsion from The Ohio State University._

“From an incident that happened last semester?!” You exclaim, trying to figure out what this could be about. Then it dawns on you, voice going tinny when you ask, “Was that, was that the cheating incident?”

V slams your laptop shut and snarls, “You shouldn’t be looking through my personal stuff like that.”

“Wait, but tell me what happened,” you compose yourself, not trying to sound accusatory.

“You know what happened!” V is almost shouting. “Jung accused me of cheating on my sociology exam.”

One of Sehun’s friends had gotten embroiled in a cheating case during sophomore year. The kid had gone through months of battles against the disciplinary team, trying to prove that he wasn’t involved in any illicit activities. You know that V doesn’t have to share all of his life with you, but you feel like you would’ve picked up on if something like that going on.

“Yes, but if there was a murky case, it would’ve been heard in front of a panel, and you could defend yourself. I don’t know anything about that.”

“There’s nothing to know. I don’t have to tell you everything,” he growls.

“That must mean it was an open and closed case,” you theorize, and though you have no evidence, you’re getting a sneaking suspicion that something bad is afoot.

V shakes his head, steadfast, “I have no idea what you’re saying.” But the moment he reacts in that way, Jungkook blanches in the kitchen. It’s not an over-the-top reaction, it’s just a nervous twitch of his jaw, but he may as well have screamed _we’re lying!_

“Jungkook,” you order, stern. “Jungkook, tell me now.”

“Jeon,” V barks sharply at his teammate, who’s frantically glancing between the two of you.

“What’s the point?!” Jungkook cries, throwing his spatula down. “She’s going to find out.”

Guilty.

Jungkook keeps his back turned to you, ashamed at what he’s about to say, but you hear his words loud and clear, “Me, Chim, and V needed at least a B in sociology to stay on the team and we weren’t going to make it. That class was so fucking hard. Somebody I know managed to get a copy of the exam and we stupidly took it there with us. Jung saw us, made a fuss.”

You can’t believe it, can’t believe this is real, that you’ve thought for so long that Jaehyun wronged V in some incredible, fucked up way. But V had only wronged himself.

“We were given academic probation but weren’t suspended from the team because all three of our families donated to the boosters. Shady? Probably, but the team needed us,” Jungkook is crying with remorse now, sniffling all over his sleeves. “Our probation is almost up, and I swear that we haven’t tried to break it. I swear.”

You turn to V with such white hot fury, especially after he’d let his friend reveal all the dirty details, and you don’t even recognize the coldness in your voice, “You lied to me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about the academic probation,” he mumbles, not even looking that contrite.

“No,” you snap, because that isn’t even the epicenter of your anger. “You convinced me to publicly humiliate someone who was telling the truth.”

That sets V off and he is thoroughly yelling now, “You’re upset about that post?”

“Yes!” This is the first time you admit it to him, that you had been so, so ashamed of the way that video had made the rounds after you’d swerved Jaehyun like that. Of course that had been the wrong thing to do.

“Then, you lied too! You had a grand ol’ time doing it!”

You say the excuse, “Because I was under the impression he had wronged you!,” but that doesn’t really make it any better.

“He did!” V asserts in exasperation, and that’s where he loses you. Sure, Jaehyun might’ve kicked up a ruckus because of some personal vendetta, where he otherwise would’ve kept silent. But deep down, it’d been the right thing for him to do.

“I can’t believe you,” you say in a hushed, hurt voice, rushing to pack up your things and get the hell out of his place.

Once V realizes what you’re doing, he drops the anger and resorts to pleading, trying to reach for your arm, “Baby, please. Let’s talk.”

“No, don’t talk to me,” you hold your hand to stop him, bitterly smiling when you see your engagement ring. “Not until I say it’s okay.”

But you’re not really sure if it’ll be okay ever again.

—

You don’t know how many drinks you’ve had at this point, trying to dull the sparkle of the piece of jewelry you haven’t brought yourself to take off. Doing so would make it seem too final.

“Hey.”

You glance over to see Jaehyun peering at you curiously in a grey fitted suit, and of course you’d run into each other in New York like this. You hadn’t even booked a night at this hotel, choosing instead to make the interview a day trip. But you’d needed a drink, and found yourself at the Hilton bar anyway.

“Hi.”

“Funny to run into you here,” he sits on the stool next to yours and orders a whiskey. “Sorry I didn’t catch you before your interview. I think mine went well.”

“Mmm.”

“How’d it go?”

“Did you always want to do computer science?” You half-slur, the question coming out unexpectedly.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun nods, a little unsure of why you’ve asked. “Was kind of a whiz at it in high school, almost ended up at Michigan because of their engineering program on top of football. Why?”

Your tongue is as heavy as an entire block of concrete in your mouth as you reveal, “Bet you didn’t know I got into MIT.”

“What?” His brow furrows in confusion. “You did?”

You drain the last bit of your vodka, then sigh, “I was a right little nerd in high school, all 5s on my APs, robotics club president, yada yada. Applied to Ohio State, as is tradition, Bowling Green as my safety and paid for the MIT application out of my own pocket. Got into all three.”

You still have a cotton tee emblazoned with a beaver stuffed into the very bottom of your clothes cabinet. That’s how much you’d wanted it.

“That’s not surprising. What’s surprising is that you ended up at Ohio.”

“Did you hear what I said? As is tradition? Yeah, I think I’m technically a septuple legacy? If that’s even a thing.”

“A septuple legacy?” He’s still sort of bewildered as to where this story is going.

“Yup, my dad’s parents, my parents, and all three of my sisters went to OSU,” you count them out on your fingers, seven of your immediate family members that went to the same university.

“What, so you felt like you couldn’t not go?” He questions, and you wish you were as naive as him.

“I mean, you chose to go there over Michigan,” you point out.

Jaehyun shakes his head, “I was recruited, I had no stake in the game.”

“No, it wasn’t just as simple as ‘I couldn’t not go.’ You haven’t had the lovely honor of knowing my parents,” you sigh. You don’t know if it’s the alcohol or what, but he’s getting this story right now. You ask him, “You know _The Plain Dealer_?”

His confusion only deepens. “What? No?”

“You’re not from Ohio, I assume?” You ask.

“No, Connecticut,” he opens his wallet to show you his ID, and your nose wrinkles with fondness at the baby fat still present in his cheeks in the picture.

“Right, anyways. It’s Cleveland’s biggest newspaper, and it has been owned by my family since, I don’t know, the early 1900s?” You don’t think a single person on campus realizes just who you and your family are, and you’ve worked to keep it that way. No fancy clothes, no expensive trips or electronics, nothing more than you could buy with your own money from working campus jobs.

Jaehyun is one of those people who’s been in the dark, judging from his reaction, “Whoa.”

“So, that means I come from old money,” you spit the phrase out like it’s venom. “And with old money comes old rules. Ladies must be proper, polite, poised, find well to-do husbands, become housewives, that sort of thing. Nothing serious or intense, where your ladylike reputation could be questioned. What my mom did. Inherently sexist and misogynistic, but that is what they follow.”

It’s been drilled into you that your mother should be your role model, how she’d graduated with a degree in hospitality from OSU, but dropped it all to get married and have Nicole within a year of graduation.

“Sounds awful,” Jaehyun gripes, then realizes he’s technically slandered your mother. “Oops, sorry.”

“My sisters are all ten years older than me, I am the baby of the family. So I thought when it came to me, things could be bent. But no.”

You’re already feeling the tears, the plain agony that had become your norm during this time, “When senior year started, my parents sat me down with their proposition. They would offer me four years of college tuition paid in full, but only if I went to OSU and studied something _acceptable_ to them, like interior design, PR, or hospitality. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but they made it clear, no STEM fields, no history, or even journalism, which is fucking crazy considering they built their fortune from a newspaper.”

“That must’ve killed the right little nerd,” he says as his fingers brush yours when he takes his glass in hand.

“Yeah,” you affirm, thinking of how that little nerd is still somewhere in you now. “I didn’t know what the fuck to do, I was scared and lost, had no money of my own, no means to pay seventy five thousand dollars a year to go to MIT without taking all of that on as debt. Since I obviously didn’t meet the requirements for financial aid.”

Here they come, the memories of worst day of your life, the lock on your door snapped shut so no one could find you, the devastating shake of your fingers on your computer mouse. How you’d kept a hand over your mouth to muffle your cries, how you’d put that beaver tee under your pillow every night after.

You clench your hand so tightly your nails bite into your skin and tell him the truth, “So I sobbed my eyes out alone one night, withdrew my acceptance to MIT, and committed to OSU.”

That is something you’ll never forget, the pain blooming in you now is just as fresh as it had been then, and you see an echo of it in Jaehyun’s eyes. He drinks, then carefully asks, “I know the debt was a lot but.. you couldn’t just?”

You don’t blame him for wondering, you’d almost thought to do it too. But that wasn’t all of it,“It’s not just the financial aspect. My sisters all had no problem with what they were asked. They went to OSU, married the boyfriends they dated while they were there, and became a housewife, a lifestyle influencer, and restaurant publicist, respectively. The moment I expressed interest in doing anything different, I knew I would be cut off.”

This is what keeps your sick lie going. Because you’re not sure what you’re going to do without your family.

“But they’re your family, aren’t they supposed to love you no matter what?” Jaehyun wonders, and it is so obvious from that question that he has been thoroughly loved by his family.

“When you have a family like mine, prestigious and wealthy and set in their ways, it’s hard to accept change. It comes across as going against tradition,” you think to the women in the family who’ve come before you, all who fell in line and did their duty. “For example, when my sister Sunny and her husband were going through a rough patch, the idea of divorce was floated once and then never mentioned again because mom and dad threw a fit. Wouldn’t have anything like that.”

 _I will have no daughter of mine getting divorced, can you imagine what people would say?_ It’s too archaic for you to comprehend, really.

“You couldn’t give up what you loved, though?”

“No, I was too good at it, too. I was this terrified kid that had no idea what she was getting herself into.” There are so many other moments of pain, like the summer before school, when you’d caved and picked computer science classes and cried all night when you lied to your parents. “I forged my grades that first semester, made them believe I was studying marketing, and they’ve paid my tuition unaware ever since. The major is big enough that it’s easy to pretend like I don’t know anyone. And you’ve obviously seen how deeply this crater of fucked up lies goes.”

“And P? Does he know?” Jaehyun asks the most harrowing question.

Sad to say, but it’d been the easiest to lie to V. You’d gone to different high schools, only falling in love after meeting at the country club your parents both went to, so he had no idea what your real interests were. He was _(still is)_ foolish enough to believe anything you told him, he was that in love with you.

“No,” you whisper.

“Damn,” Jaehyun mutters lowly.

“To keep it from my family means I have to keep it from him. Because our parents have been friends since they were at OSU — his family’s old money too, from a long line of Cleveland breweries — and they hold the same values mine does. They’re all expecting us to get married, and for me to drop any chance at a career to support V after he gets drafted. I think he expects it too.”

He sinks back in his chair, expression blank as he tries to process everything you’re telling him, “I can’t wrap my mind around how this hasn’t come out yet.”

“Through a lot of desperately hard work,” you tell him honestly. Then out of nowhere, you’re crying, the tears freely spilling down your cheeks as you confess, “Who knows, I could tell them now and it could be rainbows and butterflies. But the way more likely scenario is that I tell them now, they pull my tuition, and I have to drop out of school because I can’t afford one last semester here on my own. How will I get a job then?”

That’s why you need Google so badly, no, any job in the field you love. In case you were to have your hard-earned diploma yanked from your hand at the final second, you wouldn’t be left out to fend for yourself.

“God, I feel like even more of an asshole for the game idea,” he murmurs, his ears turning red in embarrassment.

You can’t blame him. He hadn’t known. The fact that he recognizes it now is enough to set your heart aglow with something you don’t think you’ve ever felt.

“At the heart of it all,” you know he catches the reference to the game title, “is me, trying to figure out how I can keep my life from completely falling apart when this inevitably comes out. All I have is Sehun. And you.”

Jaehyun’s gaze locks with yours, “Me?”

“I knew you figured it out that night at 7th Sense’s and I still don’t know why you haven’t told,” you admit, feeling total remorse for everything you’d done then.

“I—,” he starts, and you drunkenly cut him off.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way.A proper apology for once. I didn’t know he’d actually cheated.”

Jaehyun nods understandingly, “Ah, he finally admitted it.”

“No,” you bite out, darkly crunching on a piece of ice and wiping at your eyes. “I saw the academic probation notification on his student portal.”

“Well, publicly crushing blow to my ego aside, it wasn’t that bad,” Jaehyun concedes, in a tone that doesn’t convey how upset he must’ve been.

“No?”

“No.”

Jaehyun is staring at you now, in a curious way that you’ve never seen before, and you’ve never seen the way his dimple flashes in his cheek like that, how truly, truly handsome he is. Because even though he’s this campus god, intimidating and flawless and loved by everyone, has anyone really seen him the way you are now? Seen the kind of person that would sit and listen to your life’s sob story after going through an incredibly stressful day? Seen that regular boy from Connecticut?

You’re suddenly nervous, tongue loosening under the alcohol and his gaze, “Anyways, I fucking crushed that interview. My code was flawless.”

“Of course you did,” his index finger taps against the back of your hand, one earthquake of warmth that rocks through you. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

The notification on your phone pops up, signaling that you should be heading to the airpot soon. You don’t want to go back to Ohio, is it possible that you could stay in New York, stay in this bar with him forever? It’s the only place you’ve felt safe enough to tell your story. If you’d managed to take off that damn ring before he got here, maybe you could’ve. But you know you can’t.

“Jaehyun,” you whisper.

“Yeah?”

You allow yourself to stare back at him, to drink all of him in, then you tap your finger against his hand in return, “I probably won’t see you until school starts again. So, I wanted to tell you that you are a great, great football player. You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

The sunniness of his smile could’ve powered your flight all the way back home.

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy this latest chapter! 
> 
> i'm posting in an effort to provide some entertainment and light hearted enjoyment. but i would be loathe to continue without including a gentle reminder for those reading to continue to donate, educate, and spread knowledge about the black lives matter movement. be kind, love each other, and stay safe. xo


	3. do anything

Your suitcase isn’t even rolled to a stop when there’s a knock on your apartment door. You wander over and throw it open to reveal Sehun, bottle of tequila in hand. He glances inside your apartment, then asks, “Hey, is V back?”

You shrug and let him in. “No idea.”

“Still not talking?” Sehun questions tentatively.

No point in sugarcoating it, thinking of the dozens of unanswered messages in your phone. “Nope. Didn’t go to his family’s New Year party.”

“Are you—,”

You interrupt your best friend before he can continue this conversation. “Nope, we are not talking about him tonight.”

You’d had one discussion about the fight that happened before break and then you never brought it up again. You know Sehun is bursting to discuss but chooses to respect your request. Instead, he puts the alcohol down and pulls out a baking sheet.

“Well, it’s the natty, so want to make nachos and drink instead?”

You grin. “Is that even a question?”

Sehun blasts the newest Ariana Grande as you grate more cheese than is healthy to cover the chips. It felt so weird to not see V once over winter break, even more so to be back on campus and not immediately go right to his house, but you’re fine with it. Sehun sings the national anthem at the top of his lungs, and you preoccupy yourself with blending margaritas so you don’t have to watch the camera zoom in on Jaehyun solemnly standing with his teammates.

You’ve texted a few times over break, but with the playoffs going on, you’ve given him the space he needed. The Buckeyes have handily won all the games leading up to this, you hope this will go the same way. But the Ohio defense gives up a touchdown to LSU during the opening drive of the game, and you start to guzzle your margarita down in an effort to dull your worry.

Sehun picks up on the way you’re fidgeting, “You never got this nervous at soccer games.”

“This is the national championship, dumbass,” you sidestep his observation by pretending you’re only thinking about football. “And an undefeated season is on the line.”

“Riiiiight.”

There’s a flash of Lucas Wong sprawled out on the sideline bench and you feel your hand clench against the couch as you mutter, “It’s also personal.”

Sehun laughs loudly, “You’re that anti-LSU? And I thought your Steelers hate was bad.”

You don’t hate LSU, have even admired the way they play the game. But you’re not thinking about their team, you’re thinking about that night at 7th Sense’s, the way Jaehyun’s shoulders had been so hunched as he contemplated Lucas transferring and taking his job.

“Long story.”

You have to admit that the game is really fucking good. Even though it’s not an Ohio State blowout like you’d hoped, there’s some intense back and forth that has you and Sehun screaming your heads off in your living room. The defense must be nervous, because they’re letting more through than usual, and Lucas-led LSU seems to be scoring at will.

But Jaehyun is unflappable, on another level of connection with his running backs and receivers, and Johnny runs rampant over the opponents. If LSU scores, OSU scores in return, matching each touchdown with one of his own. You don’t know how he’s ever been anxious about his skills on the field, because even an inexperienced viewer would be able to tell how good he is. Sehun lets you nervously chatter through it all, including the commercials, when he realizes you have so much pent up anxious energy.

But there’s only so much Jaehyun can do to help his defense, there’s thirty seconds left and OSU is still down by two. Sehun’s hand is strangling the life out of yours as he restlessly hops up and down. It can’t end like this, it can’t. 

Jaehyun gets the ball, dodging a defender that comes flying his way, and you’re mindlessly yelling, “Throw the ball, Jaehyun! Throw it!”

He steps back, arm cocked, and lets the ball fly.

Johnny takes off down the field, his huge frame covering an incredible amount of turf in no time at all, and then he leaps.

“Yes!” Sehun shouts, and then you see Johnny on the ground, ball clutched tightly in his hand. He caught it.

“A perfectly thrown ball by Jung and the Buckeyes are in field goal range!” The announcers are hollering as Jaehyun goes tearing down the field to hug his teammate. “And Coach Lee is going to go for it! Send out the field goal unit!”

You immediately stop celebrating, because you haven’t won yet. This kick needs to be made. Mark jogs onto the field and you can’t help but think he looks so tiny out there.

“Oh my god, I think I’m going to pass out. We’re going to lose, we’re going to lose,” Sehun is mumbling, eternal pessimism seeping through.

“This is Mark Lee we’re talking about,” you say with supreme confidence, like you’ve known Mark your whole life. “He’ll make it. He’ll make it.”

The video cuts to a shot of Jaehyun, hands in his shoulder pads, eyes closed as he mumbles something you can’t make out, and then it’s time. You watch Mark’s shoulders drop with the deep breath he takes, then he signals with his hand.

The center snaps the ball, the punter catches, and Mark swings his leg.

You hear it before you see the ball go through the uprights, the screams from the neighboring apartments, no, probably all of campus, echoing into the night, and then red confetti explodes onto your screen.

“Holy fuck!” Sehun screams as he collapses to his knees, arms raised in victory. “We won!”

Jaehyun runs onto the field with his teammates, beelining straight to Mark so he can lift him up in his arms, face streaked with sweat and tears. Johnny sprints over and crushes the two of them into an embrace, all three of them tumbling to the ground, rolling around in the scattered confetti as the camera films.

The fans who are lucky enough to be there in Miami are storming the turf, pouring out of the stands in jubilance, and you cannot believe what you’re watching. It’s complete and utter chaos, brewed through with accomplishment and pure joy. They’ve done it, the first perfect season since the vacated one of 2012.

“Oh my god,” you babble. “We won. We won!”

Mark, Johnny, and Jaehyun have not let go of each other, even after they’ve gotten up from the ground. Their arms have not left the others’ as they stay huddled, blocking out the intrusive cameras that are trying to pick up on what they’re saying. Even after they’ve changed into their championship tees, they move to hug each other again.

They hold hands like they’re children on the stage as Coach Lee is handed the National Championship Trophy. Coach raises it above his heads once, to thunderous applause, then passes it to Jaehyun. He stares at the metal lovingly, so astonished, then he thrusts it into the air, the stadium immediately detonating with the decibel of its applause.

“We are the champions, my friiiiiiiends,” Sehun belts, just as the commissioner pulls out the MVP trophy.

“The offensive MVP is…”

“Shut up, shut up!” You hush your friend, eager to see who’d won the award.

“Jaehyun Jung, quarterback!”

You squeal in excitement as Jaehyun passes the Championship Trophy off to one of his teammates so he can pick up his individual trophy. Of course he’d won it, he’d been the only reason Ohio State stayed in the game.

“Jaehyun, congratulations,” the reporter praises him, then sticks a microphone in his face. “Anything you want to say?”

Jaehyun is still marveling at the piece of glittering gold in his hands, and then he sniffs, wiping away some errant tears as the sniffles turn into raucous, disbelieving laughter, “I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything to say but to my parents - your son is a national champion!”

He disappears into the back of the crowd, Mark and John jumping up and down with him in celebration. Then, the feed of the stadium cuts away to the announcers’ desk, where they continue to discuss the game.

“Campus is going to be a madhouse tomorrow,” Sehun breathes out, still in awe at what’s unfolded, then he sways on his feet and collapses onto the couch. “I’m so fucking drunk.”

“Me too, I don’t want to think about my nine o’clock class,” you sit down beside him, heart racing, and let him put his head on your legs. “I can’t believe we won.”

“Me neither,” Sehun yawns, then in a few minutes he’s completely passed out in your lap.

You don’t think you could sleep even if you tried. You send a message to Mark, a picture of the dents in your palm where you’d clenched your nails into your hand, but you know you won’t get a response from him for a while. Your body is completely flushed through with adrenaline and excitement.

You can’t wait to see Jaehyun in your classes later in the week, because you definitely won’t have an opportunity to see him before then. He’s going to party for a week straight, not to mention the parades and interviews and general tomfoolery that awaits him.

As Sehun snores away, you stay up, watching and re-watching the coverage that continues to roll through ESPN. It’s too perfect, too much of a Cinderella story to be real. Falling behind, making the perfect throw at the end to save the perfect season. It’s so him.

On the after show, Cris Collinsworth is beside himself with his raving, “Jung might have just become the number one draft pick. Teams must be salivating.”

“I agree,” Bob Costas nods his head as he pats away his gathered sweat. “Truly a heroic performance from him and the all American trio rounded out by John Suh and Mark Lee.”

“As a senior, he hasn’t declared for the draft yet, but I’m expecting an announcement from Jung’s team any day now,” Cris informs the viewers, and you’re sure that’ll change any day now. To hell with Google, it’d be a crime for him not to play football professionally.

You don’t realize that you’ve spent the whole night watching highlights until you feel the hot rays of the morning sun reflecting in through your window. You still feel drunk, not getting the sleep you need to help the alcohol run through your body, and you gently lift Sehun’s head off of you so you can get around to cleaning up before the first day of classes.

You’re rolling the sleeves up on your sweatshirt when there’s a frantic series of knocks on your front door. What? Who the fuck could be coming by your house at eight in the morning? Is it V? You have half a mind to ignore it, but the knocking multiplies, like it’s not just one fist that’s doing the work.

With a groan, you shuffle over to the door, throwing it open to reveal…

“Jaehyun? What, what are you doing here?”

He looks completely comical, in his National Championship tee and a winter jacket, huge gold chain around his neck, sunglasses, and a backwards hat. Behind him, dressed in the same manner, are Mark and Johnny, and all three of them already have beers in hand.

“We landed in Columbus like half an hour ago,” he slurs happily, and it’s clear he’s been drunk for some time now. “Came right to campus to party.”

“Wow,” is all you can manage, because you’re not quite sure you aren’t making this up.

“Skip class today,” Jaehyun pleads, tugging at the sleeve of your sweater. “We’re going to drink until tomorrow morning.”

“Jaehyun!”

“I know all you have is game design like me, we can skip it.”

He looks so earnest, fiddling with the pop top of his beer, you can’t say no. “Can Sehun come?”

“Of course, my best friend Sehun!” Jaehyun exclaims, though you know he’s never met your companion before.

“Sehun!” You bark, trying to rouse your friend from his dead sleep.

“Ah, what?!” He startles awake, looking around for the source of the noise. The moment he sees Jaehyun outside your apartment, he comically bows in reverence, “Your highness.”

Jaehyun and his friends cackle loudly, and you throw Sehun’s sneakers over from your door, “Get your shoes on, we’re going out.”

You can’t believe you’re doing this, marching down snow-covered Main Street in your pajamas as people stick their heads out their apartment windows to cheer for the football team. The football boys walk ahead with some more of their teammates, obviously loving the adoration, as you and Sehun walk behind, dumbfounded.

All of the bars on the street are closed because of the early hour, but the dingiest one on the corner opens up after Johnny spends ten minutes knocking on the door. They wheel out kegs and every last bottle of champagne in the tiny place, and word spreads quickly. Everyone and their mom wants a glimpse of the Championship Trophy, which hasn’t left Mark’s arms since it’d shown up with defensive players Doyoung Kim and Taeyong Lee, along with the rest of the team.

Those who sneak in still have to pay for their booze, but you and Sehun are guests of honor, and immediately get to guzzling beer and mimosas like it’s no one’s business. You lose your coat ten minutes in, sizzling up from the sheer amount of people, and somewhere along the way, you end up with Jaehyun’s champions hat on your head as you do a keg stand with Sehun.

When Sehun puts you down so he can get lifted up by Johnny, you feel a warm hand around your arm, tucking you into an inconspicuous back corner of the bar.

You’ve been drinking for hours at this point, but you know you’re not making up the way Jaehyun’s face is so tantalizingly flushed or the way his fingers are around your wrist now, dangerously close to holding your hand.

“Hey, tiny,” he whispers.

You whisper back, “Hey.”

“Come here.” He pulls you closer so he can hug you, pressing you into his chest, his boyish scent flooding over you. This is the first time you’ve hugged like this, first time you’ve felt his hand curve over the back of your head, felt his heartbeat thrumming so clearly in his chest.

You pull back, smiling at him from under heavy-lidded eyes, “You know what? I never congratulated you.”

He continues holding you, and a cheeky grin spreads across his face. “How dare you.”

“Congratulations,” you murmur, lip catching between your teeth as you think of how to express everything that’s running through you.

His face dips low, and you’re burning up into an inferno that’s not due to the physical temperature in the bar. “Well, somebody told me I was a great quarterback.”

“Shot ski! Come here, y/n!” Mark hollers, and Jaehyun finally lets go of you, giving you a light shove so you can take your place in line. You pass Jaehyun his hat, then take hold of the ski.

You’re waiting for Mark to pour the last shot when you hear your name, “Y/n?”

You glance around, thinking you’ve maybe spotted a head of blue hair, but you can’t get distracted from the task at hand. “National Champs, baby!” You whoop, then you down the shot of fireball, the cinnamon-y taste burning its way down your throat.

Someone yanks you away, almost clotheslining you against the shot ski, and you stumble a bit, cloudy vision clearing to see a very unhappy V here in the middle of the bar.

His voice is totally flat as he asks, “Why aren’t you in class?”

You remove your arm from his grasp in displeasure. “What are you, my dad? Everyone skipped classes today.”

“Got back to campus today and no one answered the door at your place,” he growls quietly, though everyone is too distracted to be listening in. “Now you’re out here at one pm, drunk?”

You know what he really means, _you’re out here with at one pm, drunk, with the football team?_ and you point over to where Sehun is doing another kegger, “Look, I’m here with Sehun.”

You think you’re off the hook, having placed all the blame on Sehun, but Jaehyun chooses that exact moment to stand on the bar, right in V’s line of sight. You catch the way his face completely hardens at the sight of the football player, especially so when the whole bar starts chanting,

“Speech! Speech! Speech!”

“As a thank you to all the fans, I’m buying a round for everyone in this place!” Jaehyun bellows, and the crowd erupts in a frenzy, pushing upwards to get at the bar and claim their free alcohol.

When someone you don’t recognize shouts, “Hell yeah Jung, King of OSU! National Champs baby!,” right into V’s ear, that’s when you know it’s over.

“Let’s go,” he mutters darkly, and you sadly but obediently follow him out of the bar.

He whirls around on you in fury in the middle of the sidewalk, “You just happened to end up where they were?”

“Who?” You feign innocence for a second, then lie again, “I wanted to see the trophy! Sehun saw where they were on Insta.”

“Right, and you just happened to end up in the front with all of their friends,” V scoffs.

You’ve had enough, you were having too much of a good time, and now he’s soured your mood completely. You start to walk down the street, back to your apartment, brushing right past him with anger.

“Come on,” V pleads to your retreating back. “We have to talk, we haven’t talked since before break.”

“Leave me alone!” You scream, turning to him in frustration and hating how he looks so upset. “I haven’t said it’s okay yet. And now you’ve just ruined today.”

You march away, leaving him there in the snow, and realize that he’d barely missed you wearing Jaehyun’s hat.

—

The next trip you take to New York is one you do alone. But you’re reminded of your friend in small ways, like when the recruiter at Facebook waves goodbye to you and says, “Have a safe trip back to Ohio State. Congrats on the National Championship.”

It still feels sweet, to know that you know the most famous college football player in the country. Even sweeter is the fact that your interview at Facebook had gone well. You don’t like it quite as much as Google, but if you manage to get an offer, at least you’ll have some different options on the table.

You have your phone in hand, about to dial Jaehyun and tell him how it went, when you hear a shocked, “Y/n?”

No way, there’s no way Jaehyun is somehow here. A stupid smile crosses your face as you turn to see if it’s him, and what you’re greeted with is the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen.

V’s brother is standing in front of you in casual clothes, an employee id reading _Seokjin Kim, HR,_ pinned to his pants. You know your face must be hilariously blown apart.

“Jin?”

His eyes are similarly bugged out of his head, he’s totally shocked to see you there. He glances down at the visitor’s lanyard looped around your neck, “What are you doing here? Did you, did you just come from an interview?”

You barely can muster a whisper, “Yeah.”

Jin’s face creases in confusion as he thinks, “What, for marketing? I didn’t even think those interviews were still going on.”

You shake your head, not even able to form the word no. He pulls out his phone, flicking through his calendar, and then he nods in recognition, mutedly asking, “Were you here with the second round of software engineers? That’s the only thing on the schedule.”

“Yeah.” There’s no hiding the break in your voice.

He lets out a low breath, hand fidgeting awkwardly against the back of other his arm, “Oh, holy shit. How long have you been hiding this?”

As if you’re electrocuted into action by his words, you begin to desperately beg, clutching at his shirt sleeve, “Jin, please don’t tell. Please, please, please don’t tell.”

“V loves you,” he hisses, and this is it, you’ve just blown it all up.

“And I love him,” you confess honestly, because even through the fighting you still love him. He’s your first love, the love of your life. “I just. Also love this.”

“Seokjin!” A female voice calls.

Jin looks over your shoulder and his face blanches, “Mother?”

 _Mother?_ Oh, holy fuck, fuck, fuck. Mrs. Kim is about to catch you here at the Facebook office. But before the grenade bowls you over, Jin yanks the lanyard around your neck, snapping the plastic piece, and hides your ID in his pants pocket. Then he pastes on an encouraging smile and turns you around to see what awaits you.

V is here, in New York, his parents, too, and you’ve all run into each other in the lobby inadvertently. Your fiancé is buttoned up into the stuffy outfit he usually wears around his parents, a white button-down with a tie and khakis, and he is not doing a good job of concealing his astonishment.

Mrs. Kim looks amazed that you’re somehow also there, “Oh, y/n! You’re here too?”

“Yes, mother, she came after her interview so we could get dinner together,” Jin comes up with a lie to cover your ass on the spot, and you don’t know why he’s doing this, covering for you.

“Well, we wanted to surprise you here,” Mrs. Kim explains their presence there as she hugs you. “Since we know how hard you’ve been working at your interviews!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kim. That’s very kind of you.”

V’s face is easy to read, it’s obvious he’s roped his parents into making a grand gesture to help him win you back. That means they don’t really know that you’ve fought about his behavior, that you’re still on the fence about what to do. But you certainly can’t act cold in front of your de facto in laws. And you certainly can’t deny that as mad as you are, you’ve also missed him, that you aren’t touched by the fact he’s shown up here just for you.

“So this is the Facebook office,” Mr. Kim grunts as he coolly takes in his surroundings.

Jin winces slightly, then nods his head, “Yes, father.”

V takes that opportunity to pull you away from his family, face genuinely remorseful as he apologizes, “Hey, I am so sorry about everything.”

Come on, this is your fiancé, this is the boy you’ve been in love with for a quarter of your life. Sure, he’d made a mistake, but if Jungkook was right, V hasn’t done anything since. He’s working diligently towards a degree, will probably be drafted, and he loves you just as much as you love him.

It’d be okay to tell him the truth when the time comes, he’s shown no prejudice towards smart women in his life that you’ve seen. He’s supported you through everything no matter how in the dark he was, has always given you your space so you can do your mountains of work. You can have your own career and still support his soccer goals, you’ll make it happen.

You hug him, so pleased to be in his arms once again, and you can feel his body melt with relief when you murmur, “It’s okay. Let’s just forget about it.”

He pulls back, the undiluted hope evident in his dark eyes, “Really?”

“Yeah,” you say softly, then you kiss him. “I love you.”

He hugs you again, so comforted by your declaration. “I love you too.”

You feel more at ease at dinner than you ever have with his family. You laugh and joke and are the perfect daughter-in-law, and V doesn’t let go of your hand once. His fingers dance around the diamond on your ring, and it doesn’t feel like quite a lead weight anymore. You don’t feel like an outsider for once; maybe it’s because Jin knows your secret, so you don’t feel totally alone. You really wonder why he’s gone to such lengths to protect you.

You find out later, when Jin hugs you before he gets in the Uber and takes that opportunity to whisper in your ear, “My folks wanted me to take over the breweries. I get it.”

You don’t realize that’s actually a warning until it’s way too late.

_

You don’t realize you’ve been muttering to yourself as you run through your compilers until someone goes, “What are you doing?,” and you glance up to see Mark and Johnny, wearing twin expressions of bemusement.

“Finishing some of the object calls for the middle stages of our game,” you explain as you continue to type.

“English?” Mark jokes as they sit down at the library table with you.

You take off your blue light glasses with a laugh, “Making sure the right pictures pop up at the right time.”

“I genuinely thought you were like a PR major this whole time,” Johnny marvels, and you internally pat yourself on the back for selling that part of your public reputation.

“It’s a long story.”

“I feel so over school now, haha. Props to you for still working.”

Having them here feels like you have actual friends for once, and you ask out of curiosity, “What’s next for you two? NFL?”

Johnny and Mark nod, slapping hands, “Yup, we’re both entering the draft.” That makes sense, they’ve been amongst the handful of players earning universal praise throughout the season. But it feels almost wrong, the idea of only the two of them going into the draft.

Mark must be able to read your thoughts or something, because he observes, “You want to ask about Cap.”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t know either,” Johnny reveals with a somber shrug. “We told him he has to and I’m pretty sure his parents and therapist all said so, too. But we have no idea where his head’s at.”

“He’d be a killer software engineer, you know,” you defend their missing teammate’swishy-washiness.

You respect that he wants to weigh all his options, however, you do find yourself agreeing with Mark and John when they counter, “Yeah, but he belongs on the field.”

“You’re right about that.”

“What are you guys talking about, Porky?” You’re joined by the man of the hour, Jaehyun lazily lowers himself into the seat next to you, black hair covered by the National Champions hat that hasn’t seemed to have left his head.

“You,” Mark sticks his tongue out and Jaehyun mimics him.

“Shit talking, more like,” you elbow Jaehyun in his ribs, then you turn to Mark to ask, “Porky?”

You’ve been wanting know the meaning of the funny nickname since you’d first heard it, and the three men dissolve into giggles as they explain, “Marky, which became Morky, which became Porky somewhere around sophomore year.”

You can’t help but laugh along at the ridiculousness of it, and Johnny wheezes, “The soccer team got a kick out of that one, they thought we were insulting them the first time they heard it. Isn’t that when they egged our dorm?”

The laughter dies in your mouth when you remember that you’d purchased those eggs for Jimin and V, and Johnny catches it, “Oh, sorry.” You hate it, the reminder that you’ve been on opposing sides of the fence for so long.

“No worries,” you hum, a little sad.

Jaehyun notices your change in tone and hurries his friends out of the way, “Get lost, fools. We have work to do.”

You shake your head to clear your thoughts, you’re here to work, not to dwell on the what ifs of your life, and you turn back to your computer, “By the way, opened the finished graphics package. Thanks for making the protagonist look as little like me as possible.”

You see the satisfied smile cross his face, as he brushes it off, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

You’d really meant it though, upon opening his email, you’d bypassed the male character to go right to the female one. He’d created her to be tall and lithe, head full of flowing green hair and wearing a fierce gold outfit with a pink heart patch over the chest. She’s not a real person but you wish you could be her, coming across that confident and determined and assured of herself. You know that Jaehyun’s designed her in this way as repentance for making the game about you.

You innocently wonder out loud, “Why haven’t you declared for the draft yet?”

“Blunt!” He quips, but you lower his computer screen so he can’t avoid your question.

You catch the nerves already clouding his eyes as you detail your reasons for inquiring, “No, really, I understand that you were worried in the fall, not knowing how the season was going to turn out. But you just had one of the greatest seasons in college football history.”

“Nothing is guaranteed,” he takes his hat off as if to prove a point. “I don’t know I’ll get to the NFL and succeed.”

“But—,”

“Listen, I’ve seen my therapist since the first game I started here,” Jaehyun confesses in a quiet voice so that no one at the other end of the table can hear. “Not because I can’t recognize my talent or whatever. I know it’s there. I go because I can’t handle disappointing people, as evidenced by the time I thought Wong was going to transfer. I was always fine in high school, because my parents and friends supported me no matter what, but the moment I got here it was a totally different game.”

You feel like you’re catching a glimpse of that real Connecticut boy you’d seen once, the very legitimate worries that must’ve been crushing for him all these years. “Yeah, you had a hundred thousand people watching you every game.”

He has a hand covering his eyes now as he continues to lament, “If I go to the NFL, there’s always a chance my skills won’t translate, that I’ll be seen as a bust, not to mention that every household in America will probably watch me at least once. But if I choose to do something more controlled that I’m good at, like programming, that feels so much safer. I know I can just follow my manager’s instructions and I’ll do well at my job without any of that disappointment.”

“Isn’t football the same?” Your mouth speaks before you’ve fully processed your thought.

Jaehyun glances at you with a total look of confusion, and you didn’t mean your comment to come across as undermining his real fears.

“No, hear me out,” you put a hand on his arm in comfort. “Sure, you’re in the spotlight and you have millions of people watching you every game. But if you strip down to the heart of it all, isn’t football just following instructions from your coach? You’re not expected to do it all yourself, you’ll be set up to succeed.”

His lips soften at the subtle mention of your game, then he shrugs, “I guess.”

“And even if things were to not go your way, football is not the only thing that makes you who you are. You can always, _always_ go back to programming. But you might not be able to go back to the NFL,” you remind him, not as a threat, but as what you hope comes across as hopeful encouragement.

You’ve watered the sport down fully, but you’re just trying to instill some confidence in him. That he can do this if he wants. Because it’d be a real shame if he didn’t take his skills to the show. You have that feeling, that he has transcendent talent.

Jaehyun’s hand covers yours on his arm, for a second, and then you both get back to fixing the compilers.

Having that conversation is important, though, because you realize you should probably broach the subject with V. He’d been so steadfastly focusing on the upcoming draft after the soccer season had come to a close that you have no idea what will happen if that somehow doesn’t pan out. You should have a better idea of his plans, because you will be at the center of them.

“Hey, how was your day?” You call out after you’ve let yourself into his place.

“In here!” V responds from his room, then drops the bomb once you’re inside, “I’m thinking our wedding colors should be blue and yellow.”

Your bag lands on the ground with a deafening thud. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The Galaxy colors are blue and yellow,” V turns his computer to show you he’d been looking up _floral arrangements_ in those hues. “That’d be a nice theme, I think.”

“Why are we talking about this now?”

“The draft is next week?”

“No,” you backtrack, slumping onto his desk chair feeling a headache already brewing. “Why are we talking about wedding color themes?”

V shoots you this look of puzzlement like you’d been speaking in Polish, “Shouldn’t we start planning soon? If we want to get married this year we need to start booking places.”

A trail of uncomfortable gooseflesh mars its way across the back of your neck. He can’t be serious about this, no, no. He’s supposed to understand you want to push this off for a few years.

“Hold on, what do you mean get married this year?”

“I don’t know, it’d make sense that we get married after graduation. Our parents want that, anyways.” The bitter expectations of your family lines are implied in his statement.

“What if you don’t get drafted?” You blurt.

V’s expression goes stony, and you know you’ve just gored him through with the blunt rod of reality. You gently climb on the bed beside him and take his hand in yours, ignoring the familiarity of the gesture, “It’s a serious question, one you haven’t shown me you’ve even considered.”

“I did well last semester, and my probation was lifted. It should be no problem to find a job,” he tries to come off with an air of confidence, but there’s dread slithering through every line of his face. “Jin was an idiot and didn’t take over the breweries when my parents asked, so maybe I’ll just do that.”

He doesn’t have to say any more to tell you that he doesn’t have a plan. But instead of that causing an equal amount of dread to rise in you, it somehow confers hope. If there’s even a chance V could be a ‘free agent’ in terms of his career, maybe you can convince him to come to New York with you, to find a job in communications there, perhaps even at Google.

“Why?” He asks suddenly. “Are you afraid we won’t have enough money?”

You shake your head, because you won’t ever be preoccupied with money in that way again. You’ll make sure of it. “No.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassures you, and at that moment you’re not worried. The worry only comes after what follows. “You’ll be able to be a soccer mom. I’m going to get drafted.”

—

“I was thinking about graffiting the soccer house.”

You don’t usually study in this library, as busy at it is, but you’re glad you were here to overhear this exchange, especially since the soccer house was mentioned. You peek out from your cubicle to see Doyoung and Taeyong at the chairs across the way.

You haven’t officially met them but you know them from TV, and Taeyong’s silver hair goes flying everywhere when he shakes his head in haste, “Yooo, don’t do that. Jung said pranking the soccer team was off limits bc of y/n.”

Excuse you, what.

“Who?” Doyoung asks.

“No idea,” Taeyong shrugs as he shows his teammate something on his phone. Probably that stupid video. “His friend or whatever. He wouldn’t shut up about her.”

Why are you suddenly sweating? You have to take off your pullover because you find it way too hot, cheeks pooled with warmth for a reason you’re unsure of.

Jaehyun is huffing and puffing when he arrives a few minutes later, completely missing the uncomfortable face you’re making, “Sorry I’m late, was in a meeting.”

You pinch yourself on the thigh to snap yourself out of it, then queue up the first tentatively finished skeleton of your game. “It’s fine, I just finished uploading all the panels. Should we test it?”

That annoying flush has dissolved into a flush of pride as you look at the menu for your game on the screen, the elegant font spelling out _At the Heart of It All_ and the 8-bit heart graphic twinkling in the corner by the title.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun’s voice is quiet with wonder. “Click on the options that lead to a success, test that first.”

You press start, and then you’re launched into the universe.

You’re not sure if this will be fun for anyone that isn’t you, but you’re having a blast. The green-haired heroine leaps from buildings and run through fires. She does it all in broad daylight where she’s able to be spotted by the public, instead of in the shadows of night. You navigate through the choices, selecting a costume that doesn’t have a mask of disguise, putting up a billboard offering her services instead of choosing to reach out to those in need herself, and bypassing all the ’remain in your home’ options.

You watch the public reception meter in the corner fill from the fifty percent start number, as more and more people learn who she is and begin to seek out her help. In turn her options for power choices increase in strength. The more people know and love the heroine, the higher she can fly, the faster she can run. That all culminates in a timed series of choices, where the Clandestine Champion is forced to save the fictional President from an attacked White House. She’s there as a citizen, in her normal clothes, and when you press the option to charge instead of hanging back with everyone else, she manages to save the First Family’s life.

The last task you have is being faced with the opportunity to attend the White House congratulatory event and blend into the crowd or attend as the guest of honor. You choose the latter, and the heroine shows up regal and resplendent to cheers from the crowd. The final panel of the game is displayed proudly on the screen, _The Clandestine Champion has revealed themselves as the one responsible for saving the president. Congratulations!_

It worked. The game worked.

Jaehyun whistles in appreciation with a round of applause, “Not too bad for a first run through, tiny.”

You want to say something but you’re oddly emotional. You know your life doesn’t involve saving kids from burning buildings or shielding the president from a bullet, but it really does echo in your head. Would it be this simple, to choose the option of living your life as your true self? Would you get a blinking gold star like the one that’s on the screen right now?

“Yeah,” you echo mutedly. “If only it was that easy.”

“Any news on that front?” He probes delicately, noticing your mood.

Your shoulders slump as you continue to watch the flashing _congratulations_. “This semester’s tuition was already paid,” you can’t even begin to communicate the relief you’d felt when you saw the charge clear, “so I guess I’m off the hook for that. But I won’t contemplate saying anything until I have a job offer in hand. Who knows, maybe I’ll just invite them to our graduation showcase and let it all unfold.”

If your parents, V, V’s parents, your sisters, _everyone_ , could see this game tell your story, maybe then they’ll understand. Perhaps they won’t like being morphed into the fires and bullets you face along the way, but it’s a necessary metaphor.

Jaehyun nods in contemplation. “Yeah, that could work.”

“I never told you, but when I was in New York for Facebook, I ran into Jin there. He works in the HR department,” you divulge, realizing that you haven’t told him this story yet.

He reacts with as much surprise as you’d felt then, “No way?”

You nod. “He really sold it to his family that we just happened to meet up for dinner.” You don’t say it outright, but you know Jaehyun will comprehend what you’re saying. That Jin had lied for you. That that is a beacon of faith you’re choosing to hold on to.

“You think if his brother took it well, Z will too,” Jaehyun puts it together.

“I can only hope, right?” You hope he’ll reassure you, but there’s not much in his muted tone going for him.

“Right.”

You voice your thought process out loud, to the only person who will understand, “I mean, V’s the one I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. If he can’t accept that I am who I am, there’s no reason to be with him. I just, need a little bit more time to muster up that courage. It’s not as easy as clicking options on a screen.”

You expect that he’ll give you the same kind of monologue you’d given him about his football worries but all you get is an averted gaze and a rough, “Good luck with that.”

That’s weird. Jaehyun should be happy you’ve finally decided to get your shit together. It’s what he’s been prodding you to do all along, right? But you can’t dwell on that, because your alarm goes off with a calendar notification and you stand up in a hurry.

“I’ve gotta go. The draft starts at seven,” you rush to pack up your things, explaining as you go because Jaehyun only has the football context, “They don’t do an in person thing, so we’re having a party.”

You leave Jaehyun there at the library, staring at your game with his head in his hand.

—

“Hey, I got beer!” You holler as soon as you get back to V’s place, and you’re immediately greeted with several shocked stares from the adults in your life.

“Y/n!” Your mother chastises you silently for your unladylike behavior with her stern glare.

“Oh, sorry,” you mutter, tucking the six pack behind you. “I should’ve known.”

You thought this was going to be a low key thing, just you, V, Jimin, and Jungkook, but of course your parents and his wouldn’t miss the opportunity to grandstand. If V gets drafted you’re sure your father has offered up a full page ad in tomorrow’s _Dealer_ to celebrate him _._

“Hello, mom,” you give her, Sunny, Dara, and Mrs. Kim the perfunctory air kisses, hug your dad, and shake Mr. Kim’s hand. It would’ve been nice if Nicole made it. Jin too.

“This is so fabulous, the first step in your lives together,” your mom is warbling with excitement as she grasps your hands. “Can’t wait!”

That cheery happiness is in the direct contrast to the argument Sunny and her husband are having right now.

“Did you call the babysitter?”

Sunny’s husband doesn’t bother to look up from his Blackberry. “No, I thought you did!”

“Honestly, you can’t do anything right!” Sunny whisper-shouts back at him, and you take that moment to wrench yourself out of your mother’s grasp and go sit by your fiancé.

You thought he’d be sweating through his dress shirt, or nervously pacing, but he’s just coolly lounging, sipping on whiskey with his teammates. Jimin and Jungkook had both decided to forgo professional soccer to work at their family corporations some time ago, so V is the only one with his future on the line here.

“Hey, you nervous?” You ask after you’ve kissed him on his cheek and straightened out his tie. He’s gotta look his best for the photos after.

He’s exuding nothing but confidence. “Not at all. Tonight feels good.”

“Good. I’m so proud of you,” you kiss him deeply then, because you are, so proud of what he’s accomplished during his time here, blips and bumps aside.

“With the first overall pick in this year’s Major League Soccer SuperDraft, FC Cincinnati selects… Minho Choi, from Yale,” the MLS commissioner kicks off the festivities, and you settle in for the long night ahead.

There’s a lot of time to kill, because LA won’t be picking until close to the end of the night, so all of the adults in the house preoccupy themselves with their nonsense small talk and drinks classier than your beer.

“What were you up to today?” V asks once everyone’s involved in their own conversations and you have a moment to yourselves.

“Just working. Spent most of the day in the library.”

“Can’t wait to see your finished portfolio. It’s probably the best in the fucking major.”

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, because your game might be the best in the class, but it’s certainly no marketing portfolio.

Mrs. Kim must overhear what her son says because she inserts herself into the conversation, “Have you heard anything from Prada yet, y/n?”

Oh, fuck. You’d completely forgotten about that lie. “No, nothing.” You haven’t heard from Google yet, either, even though it’s been some time now.

“Well, make sure they know you want to be in LA!” Your mother points a chastising finger at you when she gives you that nasty reminder.

“Oh!” Mr. Kim’s booming voice rings out into the apartment when the Galaxy logo flashes on the screen. “Quiet everyone, we’re on the clock.”

Everyone scrambles into position, the adults all crowded behind the couch, Jimin and Jungkook with their arms around each other, V’s hand choking the life out of yours. This isn’t like the NFL, where they get calls before the pick is announced to let them know what’s happening. All you can do is sit there and listen to the TV as you keep V’s eager face in your peripheral vision. That makes what happens next so much worse.

“With the 26th overall pick in this year’s Major League Soccer SuperDraft, the LA Galaxy select….” The commissioner’s eyes squint as he looks at the teleprompter, then announces,

“Kai Kim, from Stanford!”

Wait. What?

The TV screen is displaying the picture of a beautifully bronzed god of a man that is decidedly not your fiancé, announcer detailing out the various Stanford records the player had broken. But no, that’s supposed to be a picture of V, his blue hair should be plastered all over the internet right now. You turn to him, and he’s frozen in place, jaw dropped as he watches highlights of a player that isn’t him.

Then, the apartment erupts.

Mrs. Kim is the one who shrieks first, practically fainted in your mother’s embrace, “This is an outrage! Who do I need to call about this?”

“I can’t fucking believe this!” Mr. Kim is bellows, already red-faced in his anger.

Your father puts a comforting hand on his friends shoulder, “I’ll get in touch with my contacts at the LA Times, see what I can dig up.”

V can’t handle it. He bolts up from beside you, knocking into the coffee table and beelining right to his room as his father shouts after him, “Taehyung! Taehyung!”

You’re the one who races over first, blocking their way by shutting the door of his room and locking it behind you. You don’t know what you expect to find inside, perhaps V crying on the ground like he’s done a few times. But he is just stoically staring out the window in a chilling tableau of acceptance. This is awful.

“Hey, hey, come here,” you whisper as you reach for him. “I’m sorry.”

But the minute your fingers brush his arm, he shoves you off of him, hotly turning away.

“V, it’s okay,” you plead with him, the crackle in your voice solely due to your sadness for him. “It doesn’t matter to me, whether you play soccer or not. All I want is you. If that means we go back to Cleveland and you work at the breweries, so be it.”

There’s a pained hiss from him, like your words have somehow hurt him even more, and you feel the salty tears start to prick at your eyes, “I think that’s what it means to be in a relationship, right? Being okay with whatever your partner chooses to do? It doesn’t matter to me. You had a great career here—,”

Because it doesn’t matter to you, at this point, where he is or what he does. You don’t want him to be upset like this, you want to be with him and be happy.

“Leave,” V orders dully, every drop of emotion completely sucked out of his voice, any capacity for a warm gaze from him fully evaporated.

“What?” You exclaim and you try to grab him again. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Leave!” V shouts, before he sees you step back in fear and his voice and face crumple, “please.”

You scurry out of the room as fast as your legs can take you, shutting the door behind you with an ominous thud.

You gather up your parents, literally herding them out of the place so the Kim family can have privacy, and you feign a migraine to get them to leave you alone. Not that that had been a super blatant lie, your head hasn’t stopped pounding since the shocking announcement.

That night as you hug your pillow, fresh with the essence of your tears, you wonder if he blames you for this. For being realistic. For ever considering that he might not be drafted. You wouldn’t fault him if he did.

—

The blue and red diagrams on the whiteboard swirl in your vision for the hundredth time and you feebly inquire, “I’m sorry, Irene, can we take a break? These logic loops aren’t making sense right now.”

Your professor glances at you with concern, you’re sure she notices your blank gaze, “Should we call it a day? Try again tomorrow? You guys got a lot done anyways.”

“Perfect,” Jaehyun answers for both of you, and you feel bad that you’re putting him in this position.

“Sorry,” you groan, mindlessly refreshing your email. “It’s been an interesting few weeks.”

Interesting is the most euphemistic word you can use to describe the shit that’s gone down since the disaster of draft day. Namely, V locking himself in his apartment and not seeing anyone, not his teammates or friends save for Jungkook and Jimin, not his parents, and especially not you. You’ve been to his apartment a half dozen times, turned away by Jimin with a displeased glare every time. That’s how you know he blames you.

“No worries,” Jaehyun appeases you, then he says something you don’t catch, because at that moment, you refresh again and an email appears in your inbox. _Information regarding your final round interview with Google._

You’re opening it before your eyes have finished reading the final e in Google.

> “ _Dear y/n,_
> 
> _We would like to offer you the position - software engineer - here at Google New York...”_

“I-I got Google,” you mumble, more to yourself than anything, to make sure you’re correctly comprehending what you’re seeing. Google wants you. They’re offering you the position. They’re hiring you. Google has accepted you into their company as a software engineer.

Jaehyun moves his head into your line of vision, blocking the words on your screen. “Did you hear what I said?”

You shake your head. “No. Did you hear what I said?”

“No,” his head does the same, “Okay, on three. One, two, three.”

“I got Google,” you announce, just as he proclaims, “I’m entering the draft.”

“You got Google?!” he gasps right as you shout, “you’re entering the draft?!”

“Yeah, I thought it through after what we talked about and my last therapy session, and I sent my papers in this morning. Should be an announcement from my team at any moment now,” Jaehyun’s mouth is running a mile a minute in his excitement, and he pushes at your shoulder, “but more importantly, you got Google!”

You got it, you got your dream job. Your dream job that you’re going to turn down.

“I can’t believe it,” you whisper in disbelief. “I’m gonna have to say no.”

Jaehyun’s hand moves your chair so you’re looking right at him, and he is beyond confused, “Wait, what the hell are you talking about?”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know V didn’t get drafted.”

The news had been everywhere on campus, another reason why he had chosen to stay hidden away from it all. You’d called your parents in a fury when you saw his sad picture from the Northwestern loss in the sports section of that weekend’s _Dealer_. That was something they didn’t have to print.

Jaehyun runs a frustrated hand through his hair, “I mean, yeah, I saw, but what does E’s career have to do with you?”

“It has everything to do with me!” Your voice goes up in pitch at the building annoyance you feel. “I can’t just let him stay at home while I go off to a big city and rub it in his face that I’ve succeeded and he hasn’t.” That would be too selfish of you to do.

He seems to think otherwise because he nods his head resolutely and utters, “Yes, you absolutely can.”

“Don’t act like you know what’s best for me,” you scoff, because he is out of line for the suggestion.

“I should know! I’m your—,” he hesitates for a full three seconds, then finishes lamely, “friend.”

But you’re incensed to the point where you throw his argument back in his face, “Yeah, so then you should know that I’m the kind of person who puts the person I love first.”

Some phrase catches in his mouth, his lips parting with intent, but he stuffs it down with the books he stuffs into his bag, gathering up his things in a frenzied fury.

“Okay,” he bites out. “Have fun wasting away in Cleveland.”

That is such a personal blow you can’t help but curse, “What the fuck, Jae!,” at his retreating back, but he doesn’t stop.

“Hey, y/n, can I talk to you for a second?” Irene calls to you once he’s gone, and you feel your cheeks grow hot. You shouldn’t have been arguing like that in her classroom.

“Sure,” you concede as you pick up your things and walk up to her desk. “I’m sorry about that and today, I know you’re taking time out of your schedule to help us.”

She pays no attention to your apology and pounces, “Why did you say you might not take Google? I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.”

Great, you’re going to have to get into this with your teacher now. “I don’t know if moving to New York is possible.”

“Why?”

“Ah, my um, my fiancé is probably going to take over his family business in Cleveland. Wouldn’t make sense for us to get married and live apart,” you feel incredibly lame as you parrot back those same words from your mother to Irene, the lameness deepening when you catch her manicured eyebrow raise.

“There are plenty of jobs for him in New York, why doesn’t he go out there with you?” Irene offers as a suggestion, like that’s something you’ve never thought about.

“I don’t know, family expectations I guess,” you offer first, before amending that to your usual excuse, “and besides, for a woman to go into software engineering, I don’t know.” Once you remember just who you’re talking to, you drop your head in shame. “Ah. Sorry.”

But Irene doesn’t take offense to your inadvertent insult, she only gets up from her desk to put a comforting hand on your shoulder, “It’s 2020, a good portion of your colleagues at Google would be women. There’s progress being made.”

She knows your innate worry because she’s lived it, and though she might not come from the same fucked up family background that you have, she’s struggled and toiled and built herself into the monument of sheer, commanding brainpower that she is today. And she’s managed to keep her flawless, composed, womanly aura the whole way through.

“Listen, I was you once,” her voice is so soothing, so calming, what you hope your mother’s will be like when you talk to her about this, “I was twenty one and scared and was about to look for front desk jobs instead of what I knew I would be good at. But my husband, well, boyfriend at the time, basically forced me into going to grad school, which is what I really wanted to do. I got my PhD, did a long stint at the Department of Defense afterwards, and now I’m a professor here.”

Wow. Irene is a fucking legend.

“What do you think I should do?” You ask in a hushed tone, though you know you have no reason to be ashamed.

“I think you know,” she smiles with purpose, then quotes the panel you’d spent the last hour tweaking the code on. “ _The Clandestine Champion needs to be set free_?”

You flinch, the instinctive terror coiling through your body. “How did you know?”

Her head tilts towards the stack of papers you have in your hand. “Marketing graduation requirements?”

You shift what you’re holding, and see that you’d accidentally gotten that printed sheet mixed up with your actual papers. You’d been meaning to send a completed version of it to your parents when they asked if you were on track to getting your diploma. How embarrassing. Luckily it was Irene that caught you, more so that she seems like she completely understands.

You’re really about to fall apart in the middle of the computer science building when Irene looks you right in the eye and gives you the most important lesson she’ll ever teach, “I get that pressure, to be who others want you to be. But think about who you want to be. And most importantly, never let a man dictate your career choice.”

—

You don’t see Jaehyun for a few weeks, because he’s out for the combine and making rounds on the draft interview circuit. Though you’re busy, with finals looming on the horizon, you think about him probably more than you should. You feel bad about the fight, feel even worse that you hadn’t had a chance to say sorry, but your opportunity comes when your Slack pings on a warm spring night.

> **literally satan do not respond:** sry for using slack, imessage is fucked rn. finally back on campus tho, can u come over later so we can regroup on gd?  
>  **literally satan do not respond:** 8? 127 Cherry Rd, Apt 2F

Funny. How that nickname doesn’t really apply anymore.

You bring an apology, in the form of the most expensive wine you can afford from the corner liquor store, and you nearly tumble over in the hallway when a shirtless Jaehyun opens the door after you knock. A warning, please.

“Hi.”

“Hey, I’m sorr—,” you attempt to make amends, but then you hear the very loud rap music blasting from inside his place, “wait. What’s going on?”

“Ayyyy!” Mark hollers from where he’s setting up a table full of red cups. “Right on time!”

“Are you guys having a party?” You ask Jaehyun under your breath. “We were supposed to work on game design.”

He shakes out the water in his hair while chuckling, then pulls on a white shirt as he explains, “We were, but we had a surprise visitor.”

Jaehyun steps aside, revealing the person who’s sitting in his living room, and your knees literally go weak.

“No!” You gasp. “No way! Showtime Shownu?”

Shownu is a certified Ohio State Legend. He’d gotten his Showtime nickname after an impressive series of wins his freshman year, and once he’d gone to the championship game in back to back years and won, his legendary status had been cemented.

Everyone assumed he was going to make the NFL, but he’d shattered his ankle a few games into his senior year and had to retire. You remember how you’d worshiped the ground he walked on that year, back when you were just an innocent freshman. Looking at his still hulking, handsome form now sends you right to that girlish, giddy feeling. V had hated that so much.

The famed football player puts down his Xbox controller, flashing his signature smirk, “The one and only. Had to come back and check on my championship kiddos.”

You think of how Sehun had a poster of him in his freshman dorm, and you just have to ask on his behalf, “Can I get a picture? My friend is going to die.”

“Can I get your number in return?” Shownu blatantly flirts with you and you go cherry, cherry red in an instant. Just what is your life that you’re here, being propositioned by your celebrity crush?

Jaehyun groans at his former teammate, “She’s engaged, dipshit.”

“Oh?” Shownu’s grin turns lascivious as he spots the ring on your hand. “Even though you’re still a senior? Who’s the guy?”

“Get a load of this,” Johnny cackles, before he stops washing dishes and drops the bomb, “Taehyung Kim.”

Here we go. You didn’t even realize Shownu might’ve known V.

“Fuck! Kim?! Cocky little kid, ahahaha,” Shownu throws his head back and laughs loudly, Mark and Johnny join in, and even Jaehyun cracks a smile. Shownu turns it back on you, “I assume that means you two weren’t always this friendly.”

“No,” Jaehyun deadpans in honesty, then his phone goes off with a call. “I’ll go grab the pizza.”

He puts on his shoes and leaves you in the foyer of their place, then Shownu begins to reminisce, “That was some beef, what was it again?”

Mark swings a hand towards the large frame on the wall by the fridge, “The Sports Illustrated cover, remember?”

You peek your head out around the corner of the kitchen, and you see a magazine cover pristinely haloed in the chandelier light. Mark and Johnny are flanking Jaehyun, who’s posing with a football held out in front of him, all three of them with dead serious expressions, like they’re the OSU Avengers. You can read the tagline from here, _Let me introduce you to some new things: meet OSU Football’s newest teen stars._

“Of course, that fucking cover,” Shownu takes a long drag of his beer, then points the neck of it towards the tall man by the sink, “John, you looked like an idiot.”

Johnny throws the dish towel at his friend. “Fuck off.”

“They were so pissed that you three got the cover that year. I still remember that little head of red hair throwing a fit outside of the shoot.”

Your heart clenches involuntarily. V had his hair dyed bright red freshman year, in celebration of your beginnings at Ohio State.

“Wait, what?”

You don’t realize you’ve actually said something until Shownu starts talking right to you, “Yuppers, the mag was about to change it up and offer the cover to some rising trio of soccer freshmen. Your man and two of his friends, I guess.”

“Yeah, everyone remembers they won it all that year. But what made them stand out was they started that year on an insane run. The first time OSU soccer had won six in a row to start the season or something,” Johnny recalls the stats, and he’s right. V had started going by V that year as a symbol of pride, after he’d scored five goals in his first game.

Mark’s voice is way more sympathetic as he explains, “But you know how much college football pulls, so the director decided at the last minute to go with us.”

How the hell had you forgotten this? V had ranted and raved about being passed up for that cover for the entire first semester of your time here. But not once had he mentioned it was due to the fact they decided to go with the football team instead. Probably because he knew how obsessed with Shownu you were, that you’d try to reason with him into calming down. These four years of drama had stemmed from something so petty?

Shownu leans back on the couch, recalling everything that he’d gone through that year, “Ruffled some feathers, but how could you blame SI? It was my senior year after we’d won the chip the year before, I’d broken my ankle four games in, and three nobodies had to step in and take over the offense. How’d I know that that was only the tip of the iceberg.”

You couldn’t blame SI. That was a story too good to pass up.

“They showed up at the stadium, and must’ve complained to the shoot assistant for almost an hour,” Shownu continues on, and that absolutely sounds like something V would do. “The kiddos were almost finished with their pictures by the time the soccer kids left.”

“The cleats, don’t forget the cleats,” Johnny reminds Shownu, voice now teetering between contempt and loathing, and you have no idea what that means.

“Holy shit, the cleats,” the older man chuckles in disbelief. “What a move.”

“What?”

Shownu shakes his head, taking another gulp of his beer, then he points at you, “Your man, little lady. What a fox.”

Every single nerve ending in your body goes glacial.

“He somehow managed to get into the locker room before the next game and stole Cap’s broken in cleats,” Mark is trying his best to inform you of this in an objective, soft way, but you can tell how much it still bothers him. “Cap had to play that whole game in a new pair and totally lost his shit. We lost that game something like 42-3, and only found out after that his feet were covered in bleeding blisters because of his shoes.”

Johnny’s voice is definitely at full loathing when he finishes the story, “We saw Kim’s red hair on the security footage, but he must’ve dyed it right after, so we couldn’t prove it to get him in trouble.”

There’s no way. There’s just no way.

But there is, because V had randomly switched hair from red to black that semester, and you can’t recall the reason why now.

“Poor kid, thought he was never going to step on the field again,” Shownu blows out a low breath. “Didn’t he start seeing a therapist because of that?”

“Well, it wasn’t only because of that,” Jaehyun’s stern voice echoes into the apartment, and you turn to see him there, frowning with the pizza in hand. “But it certainly triggered my anxiety.”

What he says next is directed right to you, a longsword’s worth of pain driven right into your chest, “And Showtime’s right. I seriously considered never playing another game again.”

This is beyond a war of traded insults, of toilet paperings and graffiti, a cheating accusation or even a fake out kiss in a dingy bar. This is true sabotage, your _fiancé_ had tried to ruin Jaehyun’s career forever — inadvertently and unsuccessfully, but that doesn’t matter much.

“I,” you sniff, overwhelmed and confused and so fucking sad. “I didn’t know.”

Jaehyun opens his mouth but Shownu cuts him off, “Of course you didn’t. I’d seriously judge you if you got engaged to him knowing the truth.”

You’re seriously judging yourself, anyways.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You whisper to Jaehyun, the other three men forgotten.

Jaehyun’s eyes are not unkind, but the lingering hurt is written all over his face, “He’s your fiancé. I wouldn’t have changed your mind.” When you don’t respond, he probes, “Tell me, would I have?”

You don’t have to think back that far, to the start of this year is enough. Think to how you used to greet him with _fuck off,_ how you’d called him ugly fuck instead of his name, all the fights you’d gotten in with him on V’s behalf. And you realize you’ve been used, thrust forth as an unwitting pawn in the war that V had started himself.

“No,” you admit with blunt, terrible honesty. “Maybe now, yes, but not then.”

Jaehyun isn’t able to keep his grimace at bay, the gesture shuddering and hefted through with concealed pain, and you suddenly can’t catch your breath.

“I need to go. I’m sorry for disturbing your night,” you mumble, before literally running out of their place.

You run until you come to a stop outside of your apartment building, putting your hands on your knees to try and force the air into your lungs. But it’s not working, it’s only escalating your breathing into pure hyperventilation, the terror and heartbreak working its way through every fiber of your being.

What V had done is completely terrible in any situation. But you can’t help but feel like the fact that he’d done this to Jaehyun of all people is completely and utterly unforgivable. You also can’t help but feel like that heartbreak you’re feeling is not because of V’s malicious actions, but because you couldn’t possibly bear to see Jaehyun that sad ever again.

—

You spend all week convinced you’re going to break up with V. But you cave by the end of it.

You want to give him one last chance, for the goodness of the years you’ve shared together, though you recognize most of that time has been clouded with lies. If he proves that he can be the sweet boy that has somehow disappeared into the shadows, and acknowledges that he needs to see a professional to work through his issues, then maybe you can find a path to making things work. It’s a naive and hopeful plan, but you have to try. You’ll save the cleats incident for another day, after you’ve given V the chance to emerge from his depression, but rest assured, he’ll have to atone for that too.

When you’re stopped at the apartment by Jimin this time, you ignore it, instead marching over to V’s room and throwing open the door. He’s in his bed, scrolling his phone with the curtains drawn, and he flinches when he sees you there.

You don’t yell at him, you don’t confront him, you don’t do anything but gently smile and suggest, “You want to study for finals together? Maybe we should get out of the house.”

He rolls over, turning his back to you. “I don’t want to.”

“V, you haven’t gone out for something other than class since January… it’s April,” you prod at him. Even if you’re confused as to where your relationship stands, no human should fester indoors like this. “Let’s go out, sit by a window in the cafe and study.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, and he pulls on a hoodie so he can go out with you.

You fill the time spent walking to the cafe by his place with mindless chatter, hoping to get his spirits up. But V remains in a foul mood, not responding to anything you’re saying, only walking with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t lighten up until you buy him his favorite green tea latte, then he does seem to be soaking in the late afternoon spring sun a little — his blue hair shines in the rays, and you inadvertently gulp as you picture the tresses in red.

“Isn’t this nice?” You hum as you sip your iced tea. “I’m so glad it’s finally getting warm.”

“I guess,” he shrugs.

His eyes wander everywhere as he takes in the other patrons of the cafe. You prepare for him to crack a joke, to make a funny observation about the floral romper the guy by the cutlery station is wearing or about how they’d put too much whipped cream on his latte.

What you get instead is, “What a fucking clown.”

You glance towards the door of the cafe, hoping that one of the football players hasn’t walked in, but you don’t see anyone. “What do you mean?”

“Look at her,” V sneers. “Just so unbelievably geeky.”

Okay, your plan is already off to a bad start. Sure, the girl’s outfit is a little out of fashion, a high waisted corduroy skirt and a jean jacket, but that is no reason for an insult against her appearance.

Then you see what’s on her screen, the program that is the most utilized one on your personal computer. Brackets.

“She’s just coding,” you whisper in her defense, hoping you hadn’t interpreted V’s jab the right way.

He lets out a repulsed chuckle, as if you’d said something like _she’s just hurting puppies_ instead, then his biting tone is washed through with displeasure, “Coding? What, to become like one of those IT Amazon help desk people? She’s never going to get anywhere doing that.”

You squeeze your cup so violently the top pops off and the ice sloshes everywhere.You swear your teeth might explode out of your mouth due to the sheer force of yougrinding your jaw in repugnance.

“No,” you hiss. “To become a software engineer.”

“Whatever,” V arrogantly waves his hand as he watches the girl sit down and begin coding again. “No husband wants to have a wife that’s smarter than him.”

That, y/n you fucking idiot, is the truth.

You don’t know why you’d expected anything different from the man that worked so hard to please his father. From the man who looked down upon his own brother for following his preferred path. From the man who’d laughed when Jimin broke up with his first year girlfriend and said _I can’t be dating someone who’s that much smarter than me!_

You slam your hand down on the table and the question comes out of you eerily calm, “Did you steal Jaehyun Jung’s cleats the first game he played? To get back at him for the Sports Illustrated cover?”

“W-what?” V stutters, eyes shaking in their sockets as he avoids your gaze.

“I’m just asking you a question,” you say, simple and to the point. “Did you steal his cleats?”

“How do you know that?” He mutters, glancing around to make sure no one’s listening.

How could you be this stupid, to think that maybe he felt bad all these years later? He hadn’t even tried to give you an excuse. “You didn’t deny it.”

“What does it matter if I stole his cleats or not?” V crosses his arms over his chest, defiant.

It physically pains you to think of the words you say next, so much so they come out in the quietest whisper, “That one game gave him so much anxiety he almost never played football again.”

All you can see is Jaehyun’s tormented eyes as you look into V’s, V’s eyes that are glaring at you now. “I don’t know how you know any of this, but I’d really like to find out.”

“It doesn’t matter how I know,” you sadly shake your head. “I just don’t understand why you did this?”

This is the last chance he has, to give even the flimsiest justification for the horrid way he’d acted out of jealousy.

But the inferno of V’s fury is set off instead, “It was supposed to be me. Me! I was supposed to be the next OSU legend, that was all dad could talk about when I started here. We were passed over for the cover, won the championship that year, and nobody gave a shit.”

“I did!” You exclaim, because you’d been his biggest supporter, no matter what.

He’s barely keeping his voice at a level that won’t draw attention as he fumes, face purpling with exertion, “I carried the soccer team all four years, and no one continued to give a shit about me, starting with SI, now the Galaxy. I saw he declared for the draft, which is simply fan-fucking-tastic, considering everyone now worships the ground he walks on.”

“It’s not his fault,” is what you choose to say in response, and boy, oh boy, is that the wrong choice.

“Wait,” his eyes narrow as his words drip into deadly venom. “Are you cheating on me with Jung?”

Holy shit, how did this conversation jump to that?! Jaehyun is your friend, your classmate, there’s no way V thinks you hold anything more for him other than platonic feelings, right? Whether you do or you don’t, the fact of the matter is you’d never, ever, _ever_ cheat on him and he knows this. But it is also apparent that being Jaehyun’s friend is the same as cheating in V’s eyes.

“No, I’m not,” you deny steadfastly, though he’s probably at the point where he won’t believe you. “And I’m so hurt that’s what you think this is.”

“What is it then?” He counters, but you have no verbal answer.

All you have is a gesture, hefted through with your heart’s true intentions, and that is to take off your engagement ring and toss it towards his seat at the table.

V has the audacity to look shocked. “You’re giving this back?”

“Yes,” you get up and move to leave the table before you start crying in front of him.

He catches your arm in his hand, holding you in place as he continue to make sense of what you’re trying to do, “What? So we’re broken up? Because of something I did as a freshman?”

That’s the most angering part, that he doesn’t see what he’s done wrong, that he thinks you’re upset about a little tussle he’d gotten in. But like you’d thought that night when Shownu revealed the truth, the painful apotheosis of your relationship has been brought about by two things and two things only.

One, that V’s actions nearly caused the implosion of Jaehyun’s football career.

And two — that he looked at you, the girl that was supposed to be the love of his life, and dared to say something as awful as _no husband wants to have a wife that’s smarter than him._

You bring your face close to his, so he can soak up every last bit of how enraged you are, then you snarl, “It’s not _just_ something you did as a freshman. So, yeah. We’re broken up.”

You yank your arm out of V’s grasp, and stalk out of the cafe.

—

You go straight to 7th Sense’s and order three vodka sodas.

You crush those, devour a burger, and then order another round of the drinks. You text Jaehyun with the excuse that you want to make up for the missed game design work session. It’s a little embarrassing how long you’ve been on the same barstool by the time he shows up, totally baffled to see you halfway to wasted at the bar.

“You wanted to work _here_?”

You finish off the sixth cocktail and wave your hand at the guy for another set. “Yup.”

“Okaaaaay,” he mutters as he sits down and slyly takes two of your new cups away from you before getting to business, “we still need to fix the alter ego destruction path.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the list of bugs written out.” _Come on, y/n, just tell him why you’d asked him to meet!_

“I have the draft next weekend, do you think you’ll be able to deal with all of it by yourself?” He asks, probably out of courtesy, because it’s not like he’s skipping the fucking NFL Draft to help you with something as stupid as game design.

“It’s already next weekend? God, I feel like shit for forgetting. Finals start on Monday too, I feel like I’ve barely studied,” you groan and your elbow wobbles after you lean your whole head into your propped up arm, your vision blurring slightly too.

“Whoa, how much did you have?”

“No fucking clue.”

“Lemme catch up,” he takes third drink out of your hand and downs it, chugs the others, orders two glasses of beer, and then closes your your tab for you all in succession. When he notices that you’re still slumped over the counter, he pokes at your arm, “Hey, why do you look so stressed out?”

“Got V out of the house today,” you mumble, burying your face into your hands in frustration. “Went to the cafe, thought I could get him to admit what he’d done.”

Jaehyun picks up on the word you leave out, “But?”

That random computer screen detonates in your vision. “But there was a girl next to me who had Brackets open.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes, What did he say again? Right. A lotta fucked up shit,” you sadly recollect the events from earlier in the evening, then dip your voice in an impression of V, “ _No husband wants to have a wife that’s smarter than him.”_

You look up to see how Jaehyun’s reacted to the news. You’re greeted with the sharp slant of his furrowed eyebrows visible even under the brim of his cap, how he’s gripping the beer glass so tightly his hand is white and trembling.

“Then in chronological order,” you list out the horrible events on your fingers, “I attacked him for treating you like shit, he accused me of cheating on him with you, and I gave him back the ring, so that’s where we’re at.”

Jaehyun’s hand stops shaking, and his gaze sears right through you, “Wait, you broke up with him?”

You flash him your bare finger like you’re flipping him off, then grab your beer and chug, wiping your mouth with your hand in a very uncouth manner, “Can we talk about something else, please?”

Jaehyun blows out a low breath, drains his beer, and then offers, “Well, we can talk about how I’m scared shitless for the draft.”

Bless him for sacrificing himself in order to get your mind off your destructing life.

You shift to the side, knocking your knees right into his, then you ask, “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere, really. Even if I’m picked in the seventh round,” his modesty comes creeping out again, and it’s really, really fucking endearing, you realize, how bashful he gets. Even his ear blush is just, so unbelievably endearing.

“Oh, please,” you wave your hand in his face. “You know that you’re going first round, probably first overall.”

“Don’t jinx it,” he starts, and then continues on once you give him an _are you kidding me_ glare,“Fine. The Giants are picking first.”

You make a face. “They’re so bad.”

“Sure, but I can’t lie, the idea being in New York is kinda tempting,” he admits, then he does a curious thing, reaching out to boop you on the nose with his index finger.

It’s a silly little gesture that you should’ve taken as a meaningless throwaway, but it translates the implications of what he’d into something completely different. ‘The idea of being in New York _with you_ is very tempting,’ isn’t what he’s implying, is it?

And that’s not all, you’re suddenly conducting the symphony of you two at a different tempo, at a larghetto so slow each chord is plucked directly from his heartstrings. He’d said something to you once, _if you were my girl, and I just played in the best or worst game of my life, doesn’t matter, you’d be the first person I’d want to see._ He’d hidden it under the guise of friendly advice, yet the first thing he’d done after winning the National Championship was show up at your apartment door.

As you take a moment to contemplate what sort of trouble you might be in, you finish your own drink, then your loosened tongue blabs, “Is it okay if I say something weird?”

His eyes glitter in amusement. “Sure.”

You don’t know where your mind is going with this, so you kind of just say the words as they pop into your train of thought, “I think, if you got drafted to somewhere random, like Jacksonville, like, it, it honestly wouldn’t be so bad to go there. It’s not totally horrible in Florida, their team colors are kinda nice too, it’s super warm, no snow or anything, I really have liked visiting Florida.” Then you pause, looking around in bewilderment, and blurt, “Wait, what the fuck am I saying?”

“Are you okay?” He asks, putting his hand on your leg, warmth of his palm cascading right through the denim covering your knee.

“Fine, drunk,” your words are coming out half garbled now, so affected by him, you are, “What was I saying? Oh yeah,” you clear your throat and then you confess, “I’m saying, that even if you got drafted to bumfuck nowhere, I’d want to go with you.”

The kind of trouble you’re in is deep. Deep, deep trouble. Because that is the truth, shattering itself all the way into your chest.

You’d felt all sorts of apprehension about that situation with the person who you were with before. Not knowing whether you’d be in LA or New York or Cleveland.

But as you take in the boy across from you now, his cherry red smile and matching blush, it’s different. You know that if you were his, and he said he wanted to move to Santa Claus, Indiana, you’d pack up and become the finest computer scientist Santa Claus had ever seen. You’re not sure what that means, though.

But regardless of what it means, you have him now, Jaehyun’s under your spell completely, but you’re as equally captivated by his. There’s no ruse you have to sell when you’re living in the truth, with his hand on your leg and your hands resting in the same proximity on the counter, pinkies brushing. You’re drilled right onto your barstool, nothing to do but sit there and devotedly watch every little way his face goes aglow, how that melts into the most beguiling expression of relief, watch the way Jaehyun Jung, star quarterback, brings his face to yours so he can kiss you.

You panic, too terrified of what might happen if you let him do so, and you slide your head away from his.

“Sorry,” he whispers as soon as his eyelids dance open, his blush deeper than the loveliest rose, “Did I read that wrong again?”

“No,” you hum, eyes flicking to where a handful of tables are pretending that they’re not interested in what’s going on. “People are watching.”

When the corner of Jaehyun’s lip quirks into a smile, the pair of you get up off your barstools, meandering along separate paths to exit the bar in a discreet manner. But the moment you’re outside, away from all the prying eyes, his hand gently loops around your wrist and he puts his ballcap backwards on your head.

He then takes your arms and wraps them around his waist, the down of his light jacket fluttering around you, and he holds you to him in the middle of the empty street. Each gesture is steeped to the heart with an overflowing amount of affection he’s secretly been hiding from you. Where was this all this time? You would’ve wanted to be showered in it, to have the blossom of you cultivated in his hand.

You don’t know how long you stand there in the comet of light coming from the streetlamp, but he is still gazing at you in this lovestruck way when he murmurs, “Can I tell you something really fucking dumb?”

You nod, his big hat jiggling on your head. “Yeah.”

“I’d be a stay at home dad for you,” Jaehyun tipsily professes with an embarrassed laugh. “If you wanted me to.”

That is really, really fucking dumb and perhaps might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to you. Because his first thought hadn’t been to ask you to be a football mom. Because he’d put you first.

You grab his face with abandon, hands squishing his soft cheeks, and then you seal your lips to his in a kiss. A note of surprise catches his in throat before he tilts his head to deepen it, his hands coming to settle warmly against the back of your shoulder blades. You’re the only sun in the supernova of your existence, Jaehyun the only planet circling your orbit, nothing but the cool night wind in your hair and his mouth on yours, sweeter than sweet.

He keeps kissing you, over and over, like he’s making sure to get his fill of each tiny crumb of you, but is not lewd or otherwise indecent with his actions. Jaehyun really just wants to kiss you, to grasp at your fingers on his face so he can hold your hand, so he can pull back for a fraction of a second and lean down to kiss you on the apple of your cheek instead.

“You won the championship and came to see me right after,” you breathe out when you have that break, hand smoothing out against the back of his neck, “why?”

Jaehyun kisses your mouth, then his nose brushes yours when he whispers, “Because I like you, tiny. I want to be drafted by New York so I can go there with you,” and when your heartbeat serenades him in a libretto of devotion, he kisses you again, “then I wouldn’t have to fly just to see you,” and again, “you’d be there with me.”

You can’t think about anything else but you and him, him and you. The way he tenderly grabs your chin to he can kiss you once more, the way the action is imbued with such a brimming level of adoration you’re unsure how you’ve survived without it for this long. This, this is what it means to have someone know all of you, know what ray of light will scatter the prism of your ardor beautifully. You lift up onto your tiptoes to more easily curve yourself onto him when you continue your exchange of affection, pressed so closely up to his frame you can’t tell where you’re only you from where he’s only him.

He steps back and takes a low breath, fidgeting where he is on the sidewalk before he randomly and stiffly announces, “Okay. Goodnight.”

“What?” You’re confused, you’d just spent the past ten minutes making out in a fury, and he’s going to leave you here at the crossroads with only an _okay goodnight?_

Jaehyun clears his throat, ears glowing coral even in the moonlight when he bashfully says, “I’m not going to bring you home to a house full of guys that are still awake.”

If you weren’t so entranced with all of who Jaehyun is, that would’ve done you in. Good hearts? They find each other, like his has found yours.

You laugh out loud, blissfully, dizzily, delight bubbling out of you as you kiss him on his fiery cheek, then remind him, “I also have a house.”

His mouth forms a round o before his melodious chuckles join yours, then you’re squealing as he throws you over his shoulder in an impressive show of strength, you laugh-screaming the directions to your apartment to the breadth of his back.

Is this what it means, to be with someone like Jaehyun?

To have this sort of joy sewn into every little thing you do, whether it’s you dropping your keys twice while unlocking your door, distracted by his mouth on your neck, or him accidentally knocking his head on the lamp by your desk in his haste to take off his shirt. The way his nose crinkles when he sees the Browns pillow on your bed, how, once he’s on your mattress, he gently tucks you into his lap so he can resume kissing you, fingers dancing under the hem of your tee in the lushest foxtrot.

At the heart of it all, you’re just a girl from Ohio and he’s just a boy from Connecticut, braided together with the purest strands of happiness you’ve ever felt.

**tbc.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for making V go full heel villain but it was fun for me to write! he seems sweet haha.
> 
> one chapter left, thank you for reading! xo. hope everyone's staying safe
> 
> also for people who are reading my other multichapter wip it's pausing for now bc i'm contemplating a rewrite of some of the upcoming chapters so stay tuned!


	4. you're everything

You’re rudely awakened the next morning by the blare of your alarm, the awful reminder that you have office hours you need to attend. You fumble at your device to turn the noise off, and you feel a warm arm curl around your shoulders.

There is a football star in your bed, and he is braiding — braiding! — a strand of your hair as he sleepily mumbles, “Hey.”

You press your cheek into his neck, feeling fatigued and hungover, but mostly frosted over with that same happiness from last night, “Hey, you were already up?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun answers, then kisses your cheek. “But didn’t want to wake you. What time is it?

You sit up to reach for your phone, clicking it on and squinting at the bright display, “Eleven. We’re supposed to meet Irene at—,”

But the rest of the sentence dissipates into the air when you see the notifications that await you, both from Instagram:

> **ohsaycanyousehun:** please tell me you didn’t do this again  
>  **ohsaycanyousehun** sent you a post by **drunkOSUthings**

Your first instinct is to panic, thinking a picture of you kissing Jaehyun has made it onto the internet. But wait, okay, there’d been no one on the streets last night when you two had engaged in the display of affection that had burst out. There’s no chance this is footage of that. Sehun’s probably just sending some sort of meme that’s tangentially related to your life. Maybe a video of a girl downing a whole bottle of vodka as she codes or something.

You unlock your phone, opening up the app as Jaehyun starts to ask, “Meet Irene when?” but the image on the screen must catch his eye because he quickly changes his mind, “What is that?”

“I actually have no idea,” you tell him, but there is a tiny, unknown drop of terror boiling in your chest.

“Can you hand me my phone?”

You reach over to where he’s left it on your desk, and in the process accidentally hit the lock button on the side. His screensaver, a picture of him, Johnny, and Mark on the field at the championship, illuminates, a notification blocking part of it.

> **[1:03 am] the abominable suhman:** LMFAOOOOOO. Kim is gonna be soooooo….

That’s all you get to read before his hand covers the screen when he grabs it. But that drop of terror is now a deluge, because there’s only one Kim that text could possibly be referencing.

“W-what was that message?” You stutter in a hushed tone, too scared to say it any louder.

Jaehyun’s voice goes completely cold. “Play the video.”

“What?”

He’s staring at the screen of your own forgotten phone, eyes hard. “Caption.”

You really, really don’t want to look, but the second you open your closed eyelids, the tiny font may as well have been a blazing Vegas billboard: **GENTLEMEN, REMEMBER: IF A NATIONAL CHAMPION CAN STRIKE OUT TWICE, SO CAN YOU.**

Shit.

You press play.

This is the worst kind of deja vu you could ever experience, watching yourself in this video, in the clothes that are now scattered on the floor of your bedroom. You’ve lived this moment, can recall each part of it so vividly, how your knee felt like it was going to burn right off under the blaze of his palm, how you thought there was nothing prettier in the world than his blush, how he’d seemed so relieved, relieved to finally have the chance to…

Your heart implodes when his lashes brush closed, the emotional shrapnel cutting into you when you watch your own head swerve to the right as his leans forward. You feel bad for doing that, you would’ve kissed him right then and there in the bar, especially when you see how devastated he looks when he realizes what you’ve done. Not disappointed. Devastated.

But no, no, no, you hadn’t dodged his kiss out of malice. It’d been out of fear. You didn’t tell him that explicitly, but you’d thought the actions that followed afterwards made your intentions clear.

Someone’s petty laughter comes through your speaker, but you don’t have time to listenand sleuth out who it is, because you’re already scrolling to the comments.

> OH MY LORD, NOT AGAIN
> 
> This dude is just sooooooo unlucky lmfao
> 
> Hopefully he’ll get a fat NFL contract to make up for this dfjdsjfsdf
> 
> Reject King!

Okay, all you can do is tell him the truth. That you’d dodged his kiss because you were scared of not knowing the intentions behind his feelings, but it’s clear to you now. He’d said it plainly last night, _I like you, tiny._

But he doesn’t give you a chance to explain it, instead quietly asking, “Did you plan this?”

Those four words cause more damage than anything else. How could he even think that was something you’d do to him? His question sparks the flame of anger in you, and you’re quite displeased that he’s started to paint you as the villain when something of his still has no explanation.

“Wait,” you shift so you can face him directly. “Answer my question first. What was that message?”

His reaction gives it all away, the sudden dart of his eyes down to the black screen, how his mouth scrunches with discomfort.

“Jaehyun!” You snarl as you reach over and snatch the phone out of his hand, not caring that you may be overstepping a boundary. He hasn’t swiped away the notification, so you get to read it in all its glory.

> **[1:03 am] the abominable suhman:** LMFAOOOOOO. Kim is gonna be soooooo pissed. Congrats brother

What leads you to the conclusion you leap off the cliff into?

Well, it’s a little bit of everything, the fact that the reply references Kim, which could only be about your ex, the hour the message had come slithering into Jaehyun’s phone, which had been after you’d already let him into your house. The cherry on top is the smug way Johnny’s tacked on _congrats brother_. Like Jaehyun’s won another national championship by getting you to sleep with him, and has bragged to his bros about it.

You don’t believe you’re really saying this, “Did you just want to get with me to get back at V?”

He doesn’t answer, but throws a question back in your face. “Did you post that video?”

You shake your head. “No, no, answer me first.”

“You think I wanted to be with you out of revenge?”

“Kim is going to be so pissed congrats brother?” Your voice peaks with heightened acrimony as you repeat the message’s contents. “What else could that mean?!”

“I—,” Jaehyun fumbles over a response.

“So, what? This was just a final act of revenge over the soccer team? Like hey, thanks for fucking with me all these years, I fucked your ex-fiancée?” You spit out the curse words like they’re poisoning you from the inside out. “I can’t believe you.”

“Can’t believe me?” Jaehyun finally finds the fortitude to fight back. “I can’t believe you! You’ve toyed around with me from the start, hooked up with me and posted that video all to satisfy whatever rebound trip you’re on!”

How dare he even suggest that’s what you’ve done! “No! Of course not!”

“You just broke up with him, of course I’m a rebound!” He groans in exasperation, as he rubs his forehead, thinking he finally understands why you’ve opened up to him.

No, that’s not it at all, you’d invited Jaehyun to the bar to tell him what went down at the cafe, but what had happened after had not been a boomerang of your feelings. Not to mention you’re absolutely mortified at the fact a second video is now making its way through the internet.

But when you don’t argue back or deny it, he digs the knife in further, “You know it’s true. You _just_ broke up with him.”

Looking at it fairly, Jaehyun could’ve never been a rebound from V. Not truly. It honestly might’ve been the other way around, in some kind of fucked up logic. That you stayed with V up until this point to deny whatever cascade Jaehyun has set loose.

“It’s not true. I think I’ve l—,” say it y/n, _I think I’ve liked you for a long time_.

Jaehyun suddenly screws his eyes shut, turning his head away from you as he mutters, “Don’t say that.”

Why is he so freaked out? He’d cut you off after the first l in liked. Did he expect you to confess in some over-the-top way? Was he not ready for something of that magnitude?

“What, you thought I was going to say I love you or something?” You joke, darkly and sarcastically, expecting him to laugh along with you.

The picture you get instead is of his ears flooding with that strawberry red, and his fingers picking at the corner of your comforter when he murmurs, “I, well. Yeah.”

Jaehyun had thought you were going to say I love you? Moreover, he’d wanted you to? That is just way, way too much.

“Oh,” you choke out. “Oh my god.”

You want him to stay in your bed, for you to talk it through. To let him know that you’re not entirely sure what you feel, but you know for a fact that you’d been more yourself than ever when you were with him last night.

He doesn’t give you a chance to say any of that, though, because he darts up, scrambling to pick up his jeans and his coat with athletic speed. You’re sat frozen in bed, dumbfounded as you watch the slope of his jaw crystallize with tension when he icily bites out, “But you’ve been very clear that that’s not what this is about. So, I’ll just go.”

He does so, you don’t stop him, and he is still enough of a gentleman to not slam the door behind him.

—

You haven’t moved an inch from where you continue to sit numbly in your comforter when there’s a sharp rap on your door. You leap out of bed embarrassingly quickly, running to the entryway in assumption that it’s Jaehyun returning, and throw open the door.

You nearly retch when you see who’s on the other side

V’s smarmy mug is grinning at you. “I saw a very interesting video this morning.”

“Fuck off,” you swear in anger.

The grin drips with false innocence then as he says, “The cameraman did a good job of capturing it all.”

Of course it was V. You should’ve been more careful looking at the patrons of the bar. If you had, you’re sure you would’ve seen a trio of men wearing baseball caps sitting in a side booth. It’d only be par for the course with him.

“I said, fuck off,” you growl and try to slam the door in his face.

He catches the door with his hand before it can close all the way, and he _tsks_ , “Might want to watch your language.”

“Y/f/n y/l/n!” The shrill cry comes from down your hallway as you’re contemplating his light threat. There’s only one person on this planet that addresses you by your full name like that.

“Mom?”

There she is, striding with purpose up to your apartment door, flanked by two of your sisters and your father behind them. What the fuck? Is this an intervention or something?

“I wake up this morning and get a call that you’ve randomly decided to end your engagement?!” She’s already scolding you before she’s even inside, and you really hope your neighbors aren’t listening in on this. How unseemly.

“Mom, I—,”

Once the door is closed behind her, she cuts you off to raise the tone of her chastising even higher, “That is completely unacceptable, absolutely unbecoming for a woman of your status!”

Your father takes that opportunity to exert his authority over the discussion, causing you to wince, “Your mother’s right, y/n, you can’t go around making rash decisions like this. What would people say?”

Logic dictates that ‘people’ would be happy that you broke off an engagement with a man that actually made you miserable. But they’re not talking about ‘people people,’ they’re talking about the country club folks who love to gossip. Who’d take this morsel of tea and spill it nefariously behind your parents’ backs.

“Wait, how the fuck do you know all this?” You certainly weren’t the one who ran off and told them this. Is there a chance they stumbled upon that drunkOSU post? There’s no way, right?

“Language!” Your mother admonishes you, and Sunny and Dara actually look appalled that you’d let the word slip. There’s more where that comes from.

“Taehyung thought it would be best if we all discussed it, you know, as a family,” your father actually claps V on the back in pride, like policing your actions was the greatest thing he could do as a son-in-law. Well, ex. That is just so far over the line your body is actually becoming queasy with nausea. Just what story had V made up to get your parents to come all the way down to Columbus? His smirk only compounds that sensation into your mind.

You’re grasping at straws now, for a reason to get out of this, and you find one in the form of your missing third sister, “Nicole isn’t here.”

“Well, we can’t wait for her,” your mom sits you down on a chair as if you’re a child again. “This is a very pressing matter.”

“Most of Cleveland already knows you’re engaged, you can’t be breaking up over a nonsense fight you had,” Dara tries to reason with you in a kind voice, but your dad completely bowls you over.

“I mean,” he looks at you with such disdain your entire being is deflated. “What on earth would lead you to believe lies about an upstanding young man such as Taehyung?”

“Get out.”

You don’t realize you’ve uttered those words until your mom gasps, “Y/n!”

A yell bursts forth from the cavern of your chest. “Get out of my house!”

“Is that any way to treat your parents?!” Sunny snaps at you.

You actually stand up from your chair and take a threatening step towards your sister, your sister who you’re realizing never understood you, not really. You take in her displeased stare and yell back at her, “Get over yourself and divorce your shitty ass husband while you’re at it!"

Sunny’s face crumples with your targeted attack. Your mom immediately goes to comfort her, throwing her arms around her second daughter in an embrace as she hisses at you, her youngest, “What has gotten into you?”

You give the partial truth, one that doesn’t even begin to cover the depth of fuckery you’re embroiled in, “I am about to start the two most grueling weeks of the semester, am preparing for my senior portfolio presentation, and you are somehow confused that I’m like this? You don’t know anything about me, mom!”

“Senior year was eas—,” Dara starts, but you’ve had enough.

“I’m presenting my portfolio at one on the twenty eighth,” you recite the details out dully, in a gesture of defeat, as an alibi for your excuse, waving the white flag towards them so they’ll leave you alone. “Please come. I will not see you on campus a minute before then. Goodbye.”

“Y/n…” Dara pleads, the soft one out of the bunch, though you know she’s still not on your side. But that won’t do you in. You’ve suffered far too much today.

You stalk over to the door and open it in a loaded gesture, “Goodbye.”

You’re totally surprised this convinces your family how seriously you want them out of there, especially considering the issue of your broken engagement has not yet been solved. But perhaps they pick up on the dark bruises under your eyes, and the even gloomier bruise of your heart.

They haughtily march out of your apartment, earning you two looks of disappointment, one from each of your parents; a look of disgust, from Sunny; and a look of _I’m not quite sure how to feel_ , from Dara. Of course, that means you’re left with V, who you’re sure has gotten a kick out of all the family drama he’s stirred up, undoubtedly in punishment for you.

“Can I say something?”

“What.” You’re too exhausted to continue arguing with him.

He strolls over to you in the casual way he used to when he’d come in for a kiss, and he brings his lips close to your ear to whisper, “I know you still love me. You wouldn’t have done that to Jung if you didn’t.”

He is so atrocious. You don’t know how you’d ever loved him.

You seize his arm, V’s eyes going wide in surprise, and roughly shove him out of your place, your sanctuary, and then you spit in his face, “Go to hell.”

You hurl the door closed behind him with the force of every lost day you’ve shared with him, compounded into one earth-shattering crash that rings out in time with your labored heartbeat. You stalk over to your computer, furiously type out and send an email, then slam your laptop shut.

You bury your face in your hands and wonder how it’s all gone so wrong.

—

Later in the week, Sehun lets himself into your place with his key, drops his bag, and flops face-down on your couch with a groan, “Sorry I couldn’t come when you texted. Finals have been kicking my ass.”

“It’s fine. Me too.”

You want to flop beside him, but you’re also in the midst of fixing your game design project. The alter ego destruction path is still not behaving in the way that it’s supposed to, you’re throwing every code modification in the book at it, to no avail.

His head peeks up from the back of your couch, fingers tapping at the suede. “So, I’m gonna say it. You and V? Donezo?”

You haven’t mentioned anything to Sehun besides a cryptic text asking him to come over ASAP. You assume this means he’s referencing the performative Instagram post that V had made the other day. A snapshot of your returned ring by a wilted rose, with the caption _you can’t always get what you want_ and a heartbreak emoji. Gag. The second round of gagging had come from seeing the number of OSU soccer fangirls that had commented in sympathy.

“Donezo,” you echo, without a hint of emotion.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

Instead of answering that question, you blurt out the more pressing matter, “I slept with with Jaehyun."

That causes Sehun to bolt upright, “I’m sorry, you… slept with Jaehyun? Jaehyun Jung? The quarterback?” He turns to where your TV is blaring the pre-draft coverage just as the camera pans to a gratuitous shot of Jaehyun, and clarifies, “That guy?”

You take all of him in, the crisp suit with pinstripes he’d worn to the first Google interview, his black hair neatly gelled, his parents (they must be his parents, because the man beside him has the same grin) flanking him. You can clearly pick up on the plethora of fretfulness that he’s hiding behind the composed face he flashes to the camera, that he must be experiencing the climax of his anxiety right now.

“Yup,” you affirm. “That guy.”

“Before or after?” You interpret the rest of the question for yourself, _Did you sleep with him before or after breaking up with V?_

“After, but does it matter?”

Sehun warily eyes your hunched and slouched form, your pinched frown, and delicately wonders, “I take it from your general demeanor that it didn’t go well?”

“Didn’t go well would be putting it lightly!” you jibe in a falsely cheerful voice, which immediately dissolves into regret, “he, uh, thought I set him up to be posted on drunkOSU, when I’m pretty sure the soccer boys stalked me. And, I, well. I accused him of sleeping with me to get vengeance over V.”

Now that you’re saying it out loud to a third party you realize how idiotic that had been to assume.

“Ah, shit.”

You put your forehead into your hands, rubbing your palms against your head and grumbling, “Yeah, so then we yelled at each other and he thought I was going to say I love you—,”

“Whoa, wait, what?” Sehun coughs loudly in surprise.

You know. _Whoa, wait, what_ is pretty much the only reaction you have too.

“I was going to say _I’ve liked you for a long time_ ,” you admit out loud, cementing the reality of it all, “but he thought I was going to say I love you, which made it so, so much worse.”

The image of his fingers curling into your blanket in embarrassment, his soft, shy voice going _Well, yeah_ , will be hard to forget.

“Do you?”

Your voice grows even quieter, “I don’t know.” You hadn’t even considered love to be a viable option, well, until now.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t have time to have feelings right now,” you sigh, lifting your head to look back at the lines of code that aren’t cooperating. “I have to finish this fucking game.”

“Write out the reasons why or why not in your code or something. Isn’t that what you people do to kill time?” Sehun says it as a joke, but the idea hop, skip, jumps right into your mind.

“Let’s finish studying, the draft starts in an hour,” you order, and then you set back to it.

Your fingers hesitate on the keyboard, knuckles flexing as you stop them from stretching out fully. And then you dive right back into your work. You’ve managed to fix everything except for the final panel that should display if someone loses the game. It’s not popping up when your public recognition meter has hit zero. You can’t pinpoint where in the code the bug is, so you re-start going through it line by line.

> # _This removes the option to fly, and instead only offers up walking or running_ / **he is very handsome and kind. like, so kind**

It’s a little cringe, to tack on that comment about Jaehyun to the end of what you’re working on, but Sehun had been surprisingly right. This allows you to sort through your feelings while doing actual work on your personal version of the code, not wasting any precious time.

> # _If fifty percent public recognition is not met by this command, hero will be forced to wear a brown costume instead of gold_ / **we haven’t known each other for that long, haven’t actually been friends for even less**
> 
> # _Less than twenty five percent recognition will cause hero to fail in their quest to save the abandoned puppy_ / **he always seems to put my best interests first, whether it be to take google or wishing me luck in my (disgusting) engagement**
> 
> # _This brings up the option to spend all nights at home_ / **he might not ever be able to get over me being with who I was with**
> 
> # _By this line, the you failed panel should pop up, but I can’t understand why it doesn’t_ / **nothing can take away the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve liked him since our second trip to New York**

There’s a lot of lines of code, allowing you to write out each and every thing about Jaehyun. But god, maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. What you’re left with is a balanced list of pros and cons, nothing screaming at you from a particular direction. How on earth are you going to decide this?

“Hey, it’s now,” Sehun calls, and you look up to see Roger Goodell walking out onto the stage, cards in hand.

Here we go.

“With the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, The New York Football Giants select…” the commissioner begins, and the camera takes a gratuitous pan over the Giants fans that are eagerly awaiting the announcement. Get on with it! You need to know!

“Jaehyun Jung, quarterback, Ohio State University.”

The camera flashes into the seats, and Jaehyun’s father is jumping up and down in glee, hugging his wife who’s already crying. Jaehyun is stonily still in his seat, phone in hand, face iced over in complete disbelief, disbelief that he’s just become the top draft pick this year. Like he said he wanted.

“There it is!” Sehun whoops, clapping happily.

“We knew that one was happening,” you murmur, watching Jaehyun get a grip and walk up to the stage. He shakes the commissioner’s hand, then holds up a blue Giants jersey. He doesn’t crack a smile until a hat with the NY logo is resting comfortably on his head, then he blossoms, the brilliant rays of his radiance pealing through the tv.

“Speaking of New York…” Sehun starts, with tentative curiosity, and you shake your head.

“Not now, Sehun.”

“You’ve been radio silent on this for a while now,” he whines. “I accepted the Louis Vuitton job a while ago, Suho’s applying to transfer to finish his PhD at NYU as well!”

That’s what everyone wants to know, right? Your professors, the eleven emails you got from the university about your next steps, your parents, Sehun. What you’d be doing, whether you’d be in Ohio or New York. Whether New York is even an option now, knowing that _he_ will also be there.

“Wait, shh,” you quiet Sehun, as the footage of Jaehyun hugging his parents is dubbed over with commentary from the announcers.

“There has been talk for weeks now that New York would be selecting Jung and there it is,” Howie Long discusses Jaehyun’s selection, “rumor has it that he’s going straight to the city to get settled in and work out with some of the team.”

Tony Romo is the one that drops the bomb, “I also heard that, plus the addition that he is contemplating finishing his classes remotely.”

Going straight to New York? Fuck the game design final, are you never going to get the chance to see him in person again? To apologize to his face for the way you’ve wronged him? Is this because of you, because of what happened? It has to be, he'd given no indication before. 

Sehun flashes you a grim smile and you tightly brush him off, “Please don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

The announcers’ commentary ends as a separate reporter takes over down at the venue, “Congrats, Jaehyun, how are you feeling right now?”

The AP photographers are going to save this image for a long time. The image of Jaehyun staring up at his name on the draft board in complete wonder, before the dimple pops in his mouth as he laughs and answers, “Absolutely amazing. Super thankful for the Maras, who decided to take a chance on a kid from Connecticut, for my teammates and coaches, for getting me to this position. And for my parents, who have loved and supported me more than I could’ve asked for.”

That must be nice.

“Anything you want to say to anyone?”

“Yeah, my teammates John Suh and Mark Lee are here, if any of you watching this right now are looking for someone to draft, they’re available,” he jokes, earning a hearty laugh from those listening. Then he looks into the camera with a knowing grin and says, “To all my people back at Ohio State - good luck on finals, knock ‘em dead!”

That is enough of a comment to know that the rumors are most likely true, that he won’t be coming back to campus this year. Why does that feel worse than ending a fucking engagement?

There’s not too much left on the game, you can probably do it all yourself. Yet, you keep checking the old Google doc of things left to do, and each night it updates. Jaehyun is the most famous athlete in the country right now, and he’s somehow still tweaking your final project.

That makes you even more determined to solve this problem on your own, so that he doesn’t have to bother himself with it. You read the program through again and again, poring through each character, punctuation, missed space or misspelled word. When you find it, it’s tucked away in the middle of a throwaway line of code, not even a part of the more complicated commands that you’d written.

> if “pubrec” = 1: print(final_display.jpg)

All it takes is one keyboard stroke to fix, to the correct,

> if “pubrec” < 1: print(final_display.jpg)

You run through the game, picking the options that would lead to the superhero’s alter ego being ruined, and finally, the right display pops up at the end.

_Sorry - the Clandestine Champion has disappeared from the public eye and their powers have been destroyed. Please try again._

It’d been an easy fix, you’d accidentally put an equals instead of a lesser than sign. That meant the losing display would only pop up if the level of public recognition was at one, not at zero like you’d designed, since the program did not count in decimal increments.

But the short blurb, written in blunt, bold font, spirals existentially into you.

You try to imagine if there wasn’t a drop of you left, if you were fully erased and built back up completely in the ideal image of a proper daughter. If that right little nerd you were in high school disappeared from the public eye and no one ever got to see that you again. That’s what you’ve been doing to yourself, depleting your meter little by little. Bringing you to where you’re at now, running on the fumes of who you want to be, desperately hoping you have the opportunity to emerge in a way the superhero in your game would be proud of.

But you haven’t wiped your meter clean yet, this game is proof of it. When your family shows up at the end of the week, they’ll watch and understand. You can’t be worried anymore, because you have one thing the champion didn’t have, an ally. Jaehyun is the kind of person who would ensure sure your meter never got to zero, even if he’s doing it from afar.

Now you understand why he’d chosen to title the game the way he had. _At the Heart of It All_ means nothing more than journey of deciding who you really are. That if you choose to hide behind the lies and the public personas and the props you set up, there’s no way the true you will ever come out again.

But if you strip those away, and expose the very heart that has spun you into the woman you are, you might be able to save the world. Okay, to save the world might be a little dramatic. To flourish is more realistic. _Finally, you might be able to flourish._

You’re finished with a fantastic game design project, you crushed your finals, you’re about to graduate with top honors from Ohio State, and you’re going to tell your family everything.

There’s only one thing left to do, and that is to leave your last comment.

—

“Yo!”

You look up from where you’re setting up your laptop to see Johnny and Mark in the lecture hall. Whatever misplaced irritation you have for them as a result of your fight with Jaehyun dissipates when you see that they’re wearing hats for their new teams. Johnny got drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers in the 3rd round and Mark was picked by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 6th. You’re happy for them.

“Hey! Look at you two, Mr. Charger and Mr. Eagle! Congratulations!”

“Sadly, getting drafted does not exempt you from finals,” Mark jokes as he hugs you, and that makes you think of how Jaehyun isn't here, how he's off in New York probably living his best life.

“Come to test out my game before the showcase opens?” You ask, wondering why they’ve made their way to the computer science building. “Think you get a friends sneak peek?”

“Yeah, sure,” Johnny shrugs. “But there’s something we need to show you first,” he says as he hands you his phone.

“What’s this?”

“Read it.”

You look down. Johnny’s opened his screen to a group message, and you start reading the exchange:

> **[11:30 pm] captain america:** meeting y/n at 7th  
>  **[12:30 am] porkypine:** yo cap where tf r u we’ve been waiting to start COD  
>  **[12:55 am] captain america:** don’t wait up for me  
>  **[12:59 am] you:** omfg. OMFG. no way  
>  **[1:02 am] porkypine:** please tell me this means u’ve gotten off ur LOVESICK ASS.  
>  **[1:02 am] porkypine:** it’s literally been a year. A. YEAR.  
>  **[1:03 am] you:** LMFAOOOOOO. Kim is gonna be soooooo pissed. Congrats brother

Oh my. You’d already decided you were probably in the wrong about Jaehyun wanting to sleep with you out of revenge, but this is actual evidence that he hadn’t. His texts are vague and nonchalant, proof that he hadn’t bragged, and Mark and Johnny’s fill in the rest of the context. That… apparently… Jaehyun has been lovesick over you for a year. Which means since the first time you’d ran into each other at 7th Sense’s, the very first day he’d kept your secret.

You’re trying to find some kind of appropriate response for Johnny, feeling the heat burrowing into your cheeks, when there’s the sound of running footsteps followed by, “Hey, sorry I’m late. Let’s use my computer.”

You turn your head, and your mouth drops with perfect comedic timing when you see Jaehyun there. Is he really here in Columbus and not in New York, here in his blue button down that matches the color of your interview dress? Those rumors had been wrong?

Johnny and Mark glance at each other, and tiptoe away, “We’ll uh, we’ll wait for our turn on the game.”

“You’re here,” you mumble dumbly.

“As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ditch you, now could I?” He teases, in a muted voice. So he had been contemplating not coming back, but decided to at the last minute, just to present your game.

You snap out your Jaehyun-induced trance and get back to business, “I finished some last second tweaks this morning, I’ll send you the file.”

He has a nicer computer than you, so it makes sense that you display the game on his. You hastily scroll through your files to find the most recent version, and drop it to him over Slack.

Jaehyun opens the file, eyebrows raising in shock as he reads for a bit, and then his voice drops to a hushed whisper, “Wait, hold on, did you mean to send this version of the code?”

“What, is there a mistake?”

“No, um. Look.”

He points at a line on the screen, but you’re more focused on the file name you’re reading. It’s supposed to say **finalproj_submitted** , which is what you’d sent to Irene for your grade, but instead, it says **finalproj_ver_PERSONAL.** And it’s opened to the very last comment you’d added in yesterday,

> # _Here is where the bug was. I had to make sure the meter was reading less than one, not just one_ / **Even when he hated me, he knew just how much being me meant to me. And because of that…**

Fuck. You’d sent him the wrong file.

You fingers dart to scroll the screen out of the way so he won’t catch the last bit, voice fumbling, “Jaehyun, I—,”

“Y/n?”

Oh, lord. You can’t do this. You peek past Jaehyun’s shoulder to see your family at the door of the lecture hall, taking in the surroundings in ultimate confusion. Your parents are here, Dara, too, and you’re sure Sunny was dragged along against her will. The even more terrifying sight is V and his parents, loitering behind. Had he not gotten the message to stay away?

You quickly paste on a smile and wave as Jaehyun retreats, “Hi, you made it!”

“Thought we were in the wrong place,” your dad explains as he views the rows of computers with a perplexed look. “Why on earth would a marketing portfolio be presented in the computer science building?”

You don’t answer, but this is it. There’s no turning back now.

Once they’re in front of your desk, you step aside and extend your arms as if saying ta da to the computer. _At the Heart of It All_ ’s title screen is proudly displayed on your screen — because Jaehyun is reading something on his in the corner — and your family falls silent as they look at it.

“This, this is my senior portfolio,” you babble, because they’re not saying anything, only staring. “Er, I guess it’s not technically a portfolio, more like a senior project, I mean, ah, I’m rambling, just watch.”

You press start, and the green-haired protagonist pops up on the screen, followed by the command prompt, _The Clandestine Champion wants to know what she should do first today. Does she a) stay at home and wait for someone to call, or b) go out and investigate the suspicious character by the fire house._

Everyone’s still so confused, so you begin to explain as you click through the options, “It’s about a superhero, who has to be publicly known to use her powers,” the graphics flash on the screen as you pick and choose the different scenarios, “see, when she’s recognized she gains the ability to fly.”

Your mother puts her hand over yours on the mouse, stopping you from showing them any more,“Y/n, I’m confused. I thought we were coming here to see a presentation of your personal brand, of the work you’ve done to promote a company or something. What is this?”

“Well, no. This is my final project…” you take a deep breath, expanding your lungs as much as you can, and then you expel it all out, “for game design.”

“Game design, honey, what is she talking about?” Your father whispers to your mother like you’re not also there.

You answer his question for her, “Game design is a class. In the computer science major.”

All seven of them stand in front of you, dumbfounded.

“Computer science? Honey, are you feeling okay,” your mother tries to reach and feel your forehead. “You study mark—,”

“Computer science,” you firmly state. “I study computer science.”

That is when the revelation seems to start to sink in for them. V’s mouth is open in complete shock, Sunny and Dara arex tittering back and forth in hushed, surprised voices, and your dad shoots Mr. Kim a look like _I have no idea what she’s talking about._

“B-but, but,” your mom stutters, “all those transcripts, your grades?"

“Forged. Though the grades were real.” They probably don’t care, though.

“But, you did an internship last summer.”

“I worked for Apple.”

Your dad approaches you menacingly, trying to keep himself from yelling, “So, you stole my money for your little vanity major? To what? Show off?”

The exchange wasn’t going well, per se, but you’d been tentatively hopeful that you could work things out. But the minute he utters that vile sentence, you feel your heart cleave right in two.

You can’t help the involuntary and immediate break in your voice, “You, you think I stole your money?”

He nods sternly. “The stipulations were always very clear. OSU, and a major that is befitting for a young lady like yourself.”

Interior design, PR, or hospitality, you won’t ever forget those fucking subjects. They wouldn’t even let you do journalism. And they own a fucking newspaper!

Your mother takes a different approach as she uses her coddling voice, “Y/n, sweetheart, I thought you’ve always wanted to go to Ohio State, just like us, like your sisters!”

“I got into MIT,” you blurt, and again, the entirety of your family’s eyes blow wide. V actually looks like he might turn green with envy at the revelation.

“What?”

“I got into MIT,” you sigh, and you assume this is what taking a knife and just hacking away at your heart would feel like, “I applied in secret and got in.”

“No, you didn’t,” your father scoffs in denial.

“Yes, yes I did. And I turned it down to make you happy.” No seventeen year old should be forced to make that kind of decision, should sob as hard as you’d sobbed alone in your room that night.

The four members of your family actually appear the slightest bit remorseful when they pick up on the tremble of your voice, how deeply you’re hurt by that still. But the three interlopers are a different story.

“Let’s go, Taehyung,” Mr. Kim interrupts your family exchange, look of derision written all over his wife’s face as they regard you. “You can tell she’s nothing but a liar. Clearly this is not the kind of woman you should marry.”

He has his arm around V’s shoulders, to try and steer him away from you, but you block his path.

“Hold up, hold up,” you growl, not concealing your hatred. “You think I’m not the kind of person your son should marry? Take a look at your own child!”

“What did you say?” Mrs. Kim hisses as the color drains out of V’s face.

“You heard me,” you snap in her face, sarcastically and rudely and well within your right to do so, “Would you like to know all the little details about how your son was on academic probation for cheating?” You flash a mocking smile towards V’s father, “Oh whoops, I think you already know that considering your donation was what kept him on the soccer team. But do you know just how bitter of a person he is, just how jealous and awful he can be, how he can get into fistfights or carelessly post videos of me online without my consent? How much of his life was taken up by petty sabotage against people who didn’t do anything to him? How that was all propped up by lies?”

You don’t give a damn if they believe you or not, but it’s cathartic to get out, to watch how tiny V gets when you don’t hold back. Jin had taken their family’s gargantuan expectations and tossed them out the window, building a respectable career and life away from their influence. But V, oh, V. He is the shining example of being ruined by his parents.You’re so glad you’re not like him.

“Sure, I may be a liar. But I don’t think your son is the kind of person I should marry,” you throw the words right back in Mr. Kim’s face.

“How dare—,”

You cut him off with a snap of your fingers as you feign thinking, “Right, what was it again? Oh, _no husband wants to have a wife that’s smarter than him._ Those really are the values you’re upholding in your child? To the point where he’s become a person I don’t know?

“That is an exceedingly true point, though,” your father butts in.

Cold devastation collapses against you at your father’s validation of V’s words to you. He’d never said those words explicitly while you were growing up, but to have this confirmation that he agrees with the sentiment, that your own father thinks that you being smart is embarrassing? This is the final part of your heart being pushed through a meat grinder. 

Your fingers are grappling against the corner of the desk in an effort to keep upright when there’s a quiet, “Hi, excuse me sir,” from behind you.

Jaehyun is hovering to your right, an amiable yet strained smile on his face. Of course this is going to go down in a very public manner, what else had you expected. The groups around you are now watching with interest, Johnny and Mark in the corner following it all intently, Irene keeping an eye on you, Sehun in the doorway where he’d frozen upon seeing your family. But Jaehyun is the only one who’s stepped forward.

“Oh my god! Jaehyun Jung!” Your dad booms in delight, the perennial OSU football fan. “Congrats on getting drafted, I had such a blast watching you this season.”

“This is such a huge honor,” your mother squeals as she falls under the spell of his handsome appearance. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going right to New York!”

“I had previously thought I would remain in the city, but I’m her project partner,” he answers her politely, before addressing your father. “Would you mind saying what you just said again?”

Your father’s forehead furrows as he comprehends what Jaehyun’s asking, then slowly repeats the words, “That is an exceedingly true point?”

“What point?” Jaehyun probes for specifics.

“That… no husband would want a wife smarter than them,” your dad finishes lamely, like it’s sounding worse the second time around.

Jaehyun turns to your mother, “Do you think that’s true?”

Her eyes go round in a panic as she looks up to her husband, who’s standing there dumbly, and then she trips over a brainwashed answer, “I mean, that rarely, if ever happens. And those relationships are always doomed to fail.”

“Am I just, am I the one who’s crazy here?” Jaehyun laughs in disbelief, hand coming to scratch at his hair as he examines your silent family. He points at you in exasperation and informs them,“Your daughter is the best coder in the entire major. It would be an honor for her to make me feel dumb every day.”

Your meter ticks up from one percent, with Jaehyun at the helm. You’ve never asked him to defend you like this but he’s doing it anyways. He came all the way here from New York to do so. When your gazes lock, both of your pallors bloom through with rosiness, and someone notices.

“I knew it,” V growls, and that is when you explode.

“Get the fuck out!” You shout in his face, not even trying to keep up appearances anymore. “Don’t ever fucking speak to me again, you piece of absolute shit.”

The Kims, embarrassed at being cursed out like this, march their son out of the lecture hall. Sehun pulls the doors shut behind them, but only after he’s had a glorious few seconds of flashing them his uplifted middle fingers.

“Alright,” your father holds up a harsh, condescending hand to Jaehyun. “No need to step in our family business, son.”

Your fingers grasp at Jaehyun’s arm as you move him to the side and confront your parents head on, pleading now, “Mom, dad, please. Can’t you just be happy that I’m about to graduate with a prestigious engineering degree?”

“No,” your mother is wiping away tears now as she sniffles. “I simply can’t believe you grew up into this.”

You’ll never understand why they treat you like a common criminal, why they see your behaviors as sins and crimes rather than accomplishments that should be celebrated. Why couldn’t they be more like Jaehyun’s parents, who’d cheered for their son so exuberantly at the draft?

“Into what? A person that has her own dreams and values and goals?” You gesture to your sisters, who haven’t jumped to your defense once, “Someone who doesn’t just blindly do what she’s told?”

“Hey!” Sunny snaps. “Watch what you’re saying!”

“Oh, come on!” You’re losing your grip on your mental strength now, because sisters were supposed to have each other’s backs. You address Dara first, “You’re telling me you always envisioned marrying the guy you met freshman year of school and moving back home?” And when she looks away in shame you turn to Sunny, “Or fighting every day with someone you hate more than love? That’d you’d end up making websites for subpar restaurants or peddling lotion on Instagram?”

You reel yourself in and finish with, “Or maybe you did, and that’s fine for you, but I don’t understand why you can’t see that’s not for me!"

Your sisters truly appear hurt now, and you do recognize that sort of lifestyle might be fit for them. But you wouldn’t know how they actually feel, because they’ve never seen you as someone they could have these discussions with. They’re ten years older, were always the proper ladies, with you as the cute baby sister who had to fall in line.

You’ve taken over the conversation as you address your parents then, staring them down with the full weight of the past behind you, “I’ve never done anything to dishonor you. I’ve always gotten good grades, gotten good jobs. But I always felt that I had to hide who I really was in order to to be seen as a legitimate part of this family. And for what?” The question is rhetorical more than anything, and you continue on before they can defend themselves, “The reputation you present to the public? Do you really think people are going to see the fact that I do computer science and decide to stop reading the _Dealer_? They won’t!”

If they’re afraid of some snooty, gossiping Ohioans to the point where they won’t defend their own daughter, then that’s truly sad. Your choice of career will never affect the operations or success of their business, and they know it. People will always read the newspaper.

“You wouldn’t want to sully the ideals our ancestors held, would you?” Your father finds his voice, enough to issue one final scathing indictment of your behavior. “This is how it’s always been. For years now. ”

Forgive the blasphemy, but you may have to spit on the graves of your ancestors if they look down upon you in shame. Because you’re only honoring your family name with your hard work. And values should change with the times. It’s 2021.

“No,” you shake your head, erasing the shake in your voice when you firmly paint the picture of what should’ve been, “I should’ve gone to MIT, I should’ve brought home my As in robotics and artificial intelligence to parents and sisters who were proud of me, I should’ve been able to walk to my office in Manhattan without looking over my shoulder in unease. That’s how it should’ve been.”

“If you continue acting in this hysterical manner, then you leave us with no choice,” your father threatens, but there is not a nanodrop of fear left in you.

“Do it,” you dare him with a sneer. “Please do.” There is nothing left to save here, might as well go all in. “Cut me off, slander my name, ask me to pay back the tuition you feel is stolen, fine. I’m fine with it all.”

You’ll go into debt to get out of this. Small price to pay.

Your parents exchange looks of worry, bracing themselves for more harsh words from you, and of course, you have one last spike to drive all the way in.

“But you know I’m going to make it. You do. I am the best coder at this school, I can do anything that I want, because of _my_ hard work. Not because of you.”

You deserve the right to be arrogant, to be cocky and lofty and full of yourself. Because you’d earned it. You. Not them, you.

“Y/n…” your mother whispers through her tears, clutching at your suddenly solemn dad’s sleeve, but you’re unmoved.

Your final message to your parents is a bluntly honest one, one that causes them to recoil in pain, “You’ll have to live with yourself knowing that the person I am has nothing to do with you.”

The sentiment presented to your sisters is worded in gentler fashion. But its implied consequences are severely punishing to the point where they blink and immediate tears are falling down their faces.

“I’ll think about you, think about your kids, and hope that you’ll take me as an example of what not to do.”

Then just like that, it’s over.

There’s nothing more for you here, it’s an ashy field of emotional rubble, looming and depressing, and you’re done with it. So, you leave. You leave everyone — the remnants of your crying family, your classmates and professor, the football boys, your very best friend, and Jaehyun. You hold your head high as the real you for the first time, a computer science major at the top of her class, and you exit the lecture hall.

You walk blankly back to your house, passing the laughing, joyous seniors who are out taking graduation photos, but you don’t feel a damn thing. Not relief, not joy, not horror, not grief. You know you must be in shock, that you’re a blank canvas right now, that your body is only preparing for the blunt force trauma of the impending estrangement. The hours tick on, you turn off your phone and eat dinner alone, start packing up your clothes robotically, and you’re beginning to wonder if you will ever feel anything again.

But before bed, you check your student portal, and you see the tiny letter of the grade Irene had given you for your game.

**A**

Then, you weep.

—

You slip into the bustling auditorium just as they’re closing the doors, and luckily, there’s a seat for you right in the back. Fitting, that you sit in the rear, because you’d done so in so many of your classes.

The entire room is filled to the brim with buzzing happiness, an effort you can’t match, but you stick on a polite face as the girl beside you congratulates you on graduating. She waves at her parents in the stands after that, and your heart thuds dully.

“Welcome, all graduates, family members, and friends, to this year’s School of Engineering commencement ceremony,” the dean of the engineering school makes his opening speech, to start the festivities. With a wry smile, you silently amend his statement to _welcome, all graduates, who are here alone, without their family or friends._ Not that you can blame Sehun for the fashion department having their graduation at the exact same time. It just kinda sucks, that you’re here by yourself.

Nevertheless, it's enthralling to watch these people you peripherally know go up to the front and receive their degrees. You clap for all of them, knowing how hard they’ve worked regardless of their major. It feels like you’ve been clapping for six hours straight when there’s someone you recognize lining up by the stage, sandwiched neatly between Taeil Moon from your machine learning class and Jennie Kim the swimmer.

Jaehyun comes across so poised, so confident, even as he waves in excitement to his parents, that you can’t help but feel a little sad. That you’re never going to see him again after this.

“Jaehyun Jung,” the dean says with immense pride, and the entire auditorium erupts into cheers. The black graduation cap only serves to highlight the red of Jaehyun’s ears as he shyly waves to the crowd.“Graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in computer science. Jaehyun will be playing football for the New York Giants.”

 _Go Giants!_ someone in the crowd shrieks, and there’s another round of thunderous applause as Jaehyun goes down the line, shaking hands, and picking up his diploma from Irene, who hugs him.

You glance down at the empty card that you picked up and filled out after you’d walked in. It’s a tiny thing, with only three lines for your information, but it will be the tiny thing to cement your future in reality.

You clutch it in your hands as the very last row is called up to the stage, pointed edge jabbing into your palm. The entire row is announced, the candidates walking across the stage and receiving their diplomas. The girl in front of you — Lia Choi, who’d gotten a degree in biomechanial engineering and was going to grad school at Vanderbilt — takes her turn, then, there’s only you left.

“Y/f/n y/l/n,” the dean proclaims, and you almost wish you’d left your last name off, “graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in computer science.” He pauses, and you watch the pleased grin spread over his face as he announces, “Y/n will be working at Google as a software engineer.”

The fact that this man, who does not know you personally, has found you impressive is the most heartwarming thing you’ve ever experienced. You’ve done it. You’ve graduated and you’re joining Google.

Then, your heart is soaring as you shake the faculty’s hands, and you feel the tears prick at your eyes when you get to Irene. She hands you your diploma, eyes glassy and smile wide, and then she embraces you tightly. “Congratulations.”

Hands wound tight around the rolled up piece of paper, you scurry back to your seat so the ceremony can continue on. You sing the alma mater at the top of your lungs, and the dean wishes you well in the world.

“Congratulations, Class of 2021!” He bellows, and you take your hat off and launch it in the air, the neon letters of _New York, here I come!_ you’d drawn on the back making it easy to identify.

In an instant, your four years at Ohio State are over.

Once the proceedings have wrapped up, you get up out of your seat, intending to rush over to the fashion building and see if you can meet up with Sehun and Suho. There’s no reason for you to stay here, everyone’s talking with their families, something you don’t need to do.

But as soon as you turn towards the door, someone calls after you, “Y/n, just a second.”

You spin back to see your professor, looking elegantly classy in her red robes, as beautiful and commanding as she usually is. You can’t resist giving her another hug, feeling emotional as you say,“Irene, thank you so much for everything. I really loved your class.”

Irene shoots you a knowing grin, “I am so pleased to hear you took the job at Google.”

“I’m so excited,” you chatter. “I really am. I start in a month!”

“You’re going to do big things, it’s cliché but true. I’ve never had a student quite like you,” Irene tells you honestly, and you really might cry.

“I owe so much of this to you. You were the role model I’ve needed all along.”

“Thank you, but you need to give yourself more credit,” she elbows your arm with a wink, “the Clandestine Champion set herself free.”

A tear cascades down your cheek at that statement from her, because out of all the things you’ve accomplished, that might be the one you’re proudest of. You’re finally flourishing.

“Keep in touch,” Irene requests. “Let’s get dinner if I’m ever in the city.”

“Or I’ll come visit you,” you offer.

“We all know you’re not coming back,” Irene says, which is truer than you’d realized, then you catch her finger subtly pointing behind you.

“What?” You mutter as you follow its path, and you almost drop your diploma when you see what she’d been pointing at. “Oh. Hi.”

Jaehyun nervously hefts his diploma in hand as he muses, “So. Google New York, huh?”

“Google New York,” you affirm, and then you tack on, “I uh, accepted it the day after I broke off my old relationship.” You’d furiously confirmed the position after V had left your house that day, and it’d been the best thing you’d ever done.

“As I said you should,” he wryly points out, in a very sarcastic _I told you so_ manner.

“Go ahead and gloat harder.” You roll your eyes, but your voice goes quiet, eyes not quite able to meet his, “Thank you. For standing up for me the other day. You didn’t have to.”

“I was going to stay in New York, but came back because I knew that would be happening,” he reveals earnestly, then reaffirms, “it would legitimately be an honor for you make me feel dumb every day.”

You’re filled with such a compulsion to do so the word _sorry_ tumbles from your mouth before you can stop it. You don’t have to elaborate, don’t have to say another word, because Jaehyun knows. You’re sorry for accusing him of using you, but mostly sorry for not getting your head out of your ass sooner.

“I know. I’m sorry too. Especially for trying to run away because of our fight,” Jaehyun apologizes as well, then turns and waves across the way, “Mama! Dad! Come over here.”

You watch a couple you remember from TV make their way through the crush of people, and he presents you with a grand sweep of his arms, “This is y/n, the smartest person I know.”

This fool.

“Hi y/n, lovely to meet you,” his mom hugs you, loving and comforting. Then, she whispers, “Thank you for getting my idiot son to decide to play football.”

Jaehyun coughs, totally embarrassed at being exposed by her, “Mama!”

This is what you’d been missing all along. The honest description of a ride or die, the shining example of having someone’s back forever. You’d given and given to that other person, till you’d cracked and crumbled and hewn yourself completely apart. And you’d never gotten anything in return.

But Jaehyun had returned to campus for you. He’d gotten you through the harrowing reveal of your deepest secret. You’d encouraged him into being confident enough to follow his dreams. That is the true definition of a partnership.

“Nice to meet you, y/n, the smartest person my son knows,” Jaehyun’s dad jokes as he produces a bouquet of bright red roses and puts them in your hands. “These are for you.”

“Oh,” you breathe out, delicately turning the flowers over, feeling the waterworks threatening your eyes. “Oh, you didn’t have to.”

Jaehyun dips his head close to your ear, murmuring lowly, “I uh, I wasn’t sure if you were going to have anyone here. So I asked them to bring flowers for you.”

This is what it means, to be with someone like Jaehyun. To have him hand you his heart like this, with plain honesty.

“Lima bean!”

Your head whips to the wide so fast you nearly crack your neck. “Nikki?”

Your sister is here, in Ohio, running over to you in her designer high heels and throwing her arms around you as she wails, “I’m so sorry I missed it, my flight got delayed!”

“W-what are you doing here?” You stutter, completely shocked to see her.

“Mom called me. And I knew I had to come,” Nicole glances around the immediate area, seeing that you’re alone save for Jaehyun’s family, and whispers, “Are they not here?”

“No,” you answer hollowly, knowing _they_ means your family.

“Oh, y/n,” she sniffles as she hugs you again, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I,” you think to smooth things over with a lie, but you settle with the truth. “I didn’t know I could.” Between her being preoccupied with her son and seemingly agreeing with your mother on everything, it’d been hard to feel otherwise.

“I was always a little sad, you know, that you’d settled on marketing,” she divulges with a wistful face. “You used to love robotics.”

Sweet Nicole. She’ll forever be your strongest ally. You can’t fault her for not saying anything sooner, because she’d still been stuck in your parents’ trap. But your mother had told her the awful truth of your fight, and she’d come here from New York anyways. Maybe you’re not so alone after all.

“I still do.”

She sighs, reaching out to hold your hand as she explains, “Me, Sun, Rara? We were fine with what mom and dad wanted, those were the lives we also wanted to live. But anyone who’s ever met you knows that you’re our family’s star. It wouldn’t be you to settle for a mediocre life in Cleveland with some washed up former soccer player.”

You appreciate the dig at your ex, more so the reassurance of your capabilities as a woman, and you squeeze her fingers tightly. “I, I have some news.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m moving to New York,” you reveal. “I got a job at Google.”

Nicole’s sunny grin could be seen all the way in Manhattan, and then she conspiratorially whispers, “Trading in a mediocre life in Cleveland with some washed up former soccer player for a fabulous life in New York with a football god, huh?”

“What?” You cough.

She inconspicuously tilts her head towards the door. “He hasn’t stopped looking over here.”

Your eyes dart to where Jaehyun is not at all listening to his parents talking to him and is completely engrossed in watching you and Nicole. You wave her away, “You’re here now. He’s not imp—,”

She cuts you off, “I’m staying at the Marriott. We have time to catch up. Especially after you move.” Then she tilts her head again, as if to say _go get ‘em,_ then takes your flowers from you to hold.

Oh, what the hell.

“Jaehyun, Jaehyun,” you catch his attention as you run over, not wanting him to leave without saying this.

“Hey. Is that your sister Nicole?”

You bypass his question with one of your own, recalling what he’d said at the bar, “Can I say something really fucking dumb?”

His lip quirks into a grin. “Sure.”

“I’m glad I turned down MIT.”

His face washes over in confusion as he tries to pick apart your intentions. “What?”

“I mean, not in that way,” you’re totally breathless now, your heart spilling itself into his. “Mostly because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you and—,”

“And?” He eggs you on, grin turning downright coy in anticipation.

Your head drops as you mumble, “You read what I wrote in the code.” It’s a huge cop out.

“I did,” Jaehyun nods as his hand curls over yours. “But you could also say it if you wanted to.”

You close your eyes, recalling what you’d typed out in that last comment, and you begin to recite it back, “Even when he hated me, he knew just how much being me meant to me. And because of that,” you pause, but there’s no reason to be afraid anymore. You’re just a girl from Ohio, here with a boy from Connecticut. “I think I love him.”

“I love you, tiny,” he whispers, and all you have left to do is remove the _I think._

“I love you, too.”

When you put up photos in your New York apartment, you start with a photo of you and Sehun, dressed as peanut butter and jelly on Halloween. That’s followed by an image of you plus Nicole and her son, a Sports Illustrated cover, and Jaehyun’s draft photo. Nestled in the center of it all is the picture that Jaehyun’s mom takes of the two of you then, kissing while holding on to your graduation caps, twin sheens of cherry delight covering your cheeks.

—

_One in a Hyundred: Jung masterfully puts Eagles to rest_

“What’s your friend’s name again?” Suho asks as he looks through the sea of people exiting the stadium.

You glance up from your phone to answer, “Mark,” before continuing to scroll through Twitter.

The Giants have just won their first game of the season, a resounding 36-10 win over the Eagles, and you’re reading everything they’re saying about Jaehyun’s commandeering debut. You can’t wait for the begrudging words the _Dealer_ will have to print about him in tomorrow’s sports section. Sweet revenge. You have Suho on alert to make sure Mark finds you from the visitor’s tunnel.

“Riiiight,” Suho remembers the name from OSU games and nods his head. “I know Mark Lee. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

“Who’s meeting us for dinner again?” Sehun drawls, leaning against the concrete wall and adjusting his Giants hat so his hair won’t be messed up.

“Mark, Nicole and Reggie,” you list off, then check your phone to confirm, “plus Jin. But we won’t make it unless they come out soon.”

“Oh my gosh,” you hear someone interrupt, and you turn to see a random older Giants fan in his gear, staring at you. He points a finger at you, “You were in the news the other day! What was it again?”

You chuckle, thinking of how you’d inadvertently been in the background of an interview Good Morning New York had done with Jaehyun. “Yes, I’m—,”

A lightbulb goes off over the man’s head, but he doesn’t say what you expect, _you’re Jaehyun Jung’s girlfriend, right?_ “You’re on the team for cloud security that Congress just commissioned. I saw you in the New York Times.”

You make a face when Sehun lets out a low _ayyyyy,_ but you cannot deny the flash of glory that races through you. You keep your voice neutral as you explain, “Ah, yes. I was placed on that project during my first week at Google.”

You’re part of a thirty person team working on designing strategies to keep national security information protected in the cloud, as a collaboration between Google and the federal government. Sure, it’d been luck of the draw that you’d been placed on that team as your first work assignment. But you’d been productive enough for them to invite you to take place in the photoshoot they’d done to announce the venture.

“I’m a huge techie, I read it all! I think the article said you were the youngest on the team?”

“Yes, I just graduated from Ohio State.”

You’d even gotten your own little shout out in the accompanying article, that Jaehyun had clipped out and put on your fridge - _the team ranges in experience from esteemed Google VP Maxwell Shim to newest team member y/f/n y/l/n, who is the youngest member of the team at 22._

The man looks impressed, then he tells you, “Fantastic. My granddaughter begged me to let her get her own computer after seeing it.”

Even if you hadn’t ended up with the privileged life you have now, if you had nothing more than your job and your name, this would’ve been reward enough. To know that you’d inspired another girl to follow in your footsteps.

“Tiny! I’m sorry I’m late!”

Jaehyun comes running over from the player’s exit, already sweated through the dress shirt he’s got on under his suit, and he stops to fist bump Sehun before leaning over and kissing you on the cheek. He looks as flushed and as pleased as he can be, and for good reason.

“Oh, oh my god,” the fan chokes out in surprise. “Jung?”

Jaehyun smiles at him affably, holding out his hand for a fist bump. “What’s up, sir.”

“What a game! That was the best debut I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you.”

When Jaehyun slings an arm around your shoulder, tucking you into his side, the fan peers at you together, vision clouded with nostalgia. “Wow, what a power couple you two make.”

“No, no,” Jaehyun laughs, ruffling at the ends of your hair with his hand. “She’s all the power. I just throw balls for a living.”

“Does it ever get hard for you then?” Giants guy asks, and you’re not sure what he means.

“What, to live with someone famous?” You clarify, but he shakes his head, letting you know he’d been talking to Jaehyun.

“No, to know your girlfriend is way cooler than you?”

A rowdy bark of laughter escapes you. It’s totally hilarious, that this obvious, die-hard Giants fan thinks you’re cooler than the man predictions say will take his favorite team to back to the playoffs this year. But your job is pretty fucking cool, you can’t deny that. And you feel immensely validated.

You haughtily stick your tongue out at Jaehyun, and he scrunches his face up at you in mock derision. But that is quickly replaced by the same gaze you catch him staring at you with from time to time. Face dripping with fond affection, swirled through with gratitude. Gratitude borne from the fact that your plainly good hearts had been able to find each other.

“Eh,” Jaehyun shrugs, then reaches out to boop you on the nose with his finger, smiling softly. “It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

**fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tytytyty as always for reading :* hope everyone is staying safe! 
> 
> v lost as to what i should do next, especially since i'm getting back to work, but who knows. if anyone has any suggestions/requests, drop it in the comments xoxoxoxo


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